REPORT OF THE SPOLIATION ADVISORY PANEL

Resolved,
	That an Humble Address be presented to Her Majesty, That she will be graciously pleased to give directions that there be laid before this House a Return of the Report from the Right Honourable Sir David Hirst, Chairman of the Spoliation Advisory Panel, in respect of three Rubens paintings now in the possession of the Courtauld Institute of Art, London.— [Mr .  Roy.]

Oral Answers to Questions

SCOTLAND

The Secretary of State was asked—

Gould Report

Andrew Robathan: If he will make a statement on the Gould report on the recent Scottish elections.

David Amess: What recent discussions he has had with ministerial colleagues on the Gould report on the Scottish elections.

Des Browne: On 23 October, I made a full statement on the Gould report in the House, in which I committed to taking forward five important recommendations. Recently, when my hon. Friend the Minister of State, Scotland Office, gave evidence to the Scottish Affairs Committee, he set out our intention to consult very soon on other issues that Mr. Gould raised. I shall have discussions with colleagues before finalising the Government's response.

Andrew Robathan: Gould particularly found that
	"the voter was treated as an afterthought"
	in the planning and organisation of the May 2007 elections in Scotland. The Government introduced incomprehensible ballot papers in Scotland, e-counting—particularly discredited by Gould—and postal voting throughout the United Kingdom, which has led to numerous cases of corruption, and which the Electoral Commission warned against. The Government are also introducing pilots on e-voting. This country used to have an enviable reputation for its democratic electoral processes, which have been reduced to the status of those of a banana republic. Is the Secretary of State proud of being associated with that?

Des Browne: The hon. Gentleman is right to base his question on the words of Mr. Gould. The problem, of course, is that he edited them. Not only did he select just one sentence out of Mr. Gould's report, subsequent letter, press release and evidence to a Scottish Committee, but he edited the sentence. The words that he missed out are:
	"by...all the other stakeholders."
	Those stakeholders included the Conservative party—[Hon. Members: "No."] Mr. Gould has made it perfectly clear that, in his view, all those in the political classes share responsibility for the situation in Scotland; we all ought to be big enough to take that responsibility and to start to address the issues through the processes that I have just announced.

David Amess: Having listened to the Secretary of State's answer, I think that he and the Labour party have absolutely no idea of the damage that the situation did to the integrity of the democratic process in this country. He said that consultation would start soon. Will he tell the House what exactly he means by "soon"?

Des Browne: It will be on or about a date in the first half of December.

Gavin Strang: Does my right hon. Friend agree that it really is time to move beyond the allocation of blame and party political point-scoring? Surely it behoves everyone, from all the political parties, to get together constructively and put in place arrangements to ensure that we never have a repeat of what happened last May.

Des Browne: That exactly summarises Mr. Gould's position when he recently gave evidence to a Committee in the Scottish Parliament. He expressed significant disappointment about what politicians had sought to do by picking on his report— [Hon. Members: "Oh!"] Those are his words, not mine. Given that my right hon. Friend has in the past been unstinting in his criticism when it was appropriate, we ought to listen to the lesson that he sets out for all of us in the House and in the political classes.

Katy Clark: My right hon. Friend will be aware that the Gould report suggests that we move away from overnight counts. Does he agree that there is no evidence to suggest that counting overnight caused the problem in May, and that we should stick with the tradition where practicable?

Des Browne: My personal view is that the overnight count is part of the recognised tradition of the electoral system in this country. Many people, whether or not they are otherwise engaged or interested in politics, expect to wake the morning after a general election able to know who their Government are to be. That is a big prize to give away. That having been said, in his report Mr. Gould sets out arguments on why asking people to take responsibility for such an important process after they have done a day's work may not be the best way to deal with things. That is exactly why we decided that it is one of the recommendations that ought to be consulted on, so that the difference of views across the country can inform the eventual decision on whether we make that significant change.

Angus Robertson: The Gould report focused on the organisational issues raised by the Scottish Parliament elections rather than on financial matters, but since the publication of the report, it has emerged that £326,955 of illegal donations were made by David Abrahams between the 2003 and 2007 Scottish Parliament campaigns. Can the Secretary of State give the House an assurance that none of those illegal laundered donations funded the Labour campaign in Scotland—yes or no?

Des Browne: The hon. Gentleman knows that that issue is not part of my responsibility as the Secretary of State for Scotland, but I can give him a categorical assurance that, in terms of my state of knowledge, none of the donations to the Labour party that have figured in the media over the past couple of days went to fund any part of the Scottish election campaign.

Patrick Cormack: I am sure that the Secretary of State agrees that the Gould report is extremely important and demands the closest possible consideration. How much time has the Secretary of State been able to devote to it?

Des Browne: My hon. Friend the Minister of State, Scotland Office, has devoted a significant amount of his time to it. As the hon. Gentleman would expect, I have provided strategic supervision. He and the House can be satisfied that I have sufficient knowledge of the report and the matters relating to it to be able to carry out my responsibilities, which is partly why I am answering questions about it. I am sure that he will not be disappointed.

David Mundell: I am pleased that the right hon. Gentleman could give a categorical assurance to the House that there were no unlawful or completely unacceptable donations to the Scottish Labour party campaign for the Scottish elections—but does not this very issue highlight the reason why his predecessor the right hon. Member for Paisley and Renfrewshire, South (Mr. Alexander), who is now Secretary of State for International Development, should not have administered the elections and at the same time run the Labour party campaign?

Des Browne: I do not think that there was any conflict of interest in the role that my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for International Development played as the Secretary of State for Scotland. Everything that he did was completely transparent and above board; none of it was done in party interests, nor was the subsequent role that he played as a politician in the conduct of Scottish parliamentary elections.

David Mundell: But does the Secretary of State not agree that his predecessor, who was also Transport Secretary, has a lot of explaining to do to the House, not least about the Scottish election debacle? Does he not agree that rather than hide behind pre-recorded television interviews, his right hon. Friend should face scrutiny in the House and appear before the Scottish Affairs Committee?

Des Browne: Who appears before the Scottish Affair Committee is a matter for the Committee, not for me—or, indeed, for the hon. Gentleman, other than in his capacity as a member of that Committee.

Commonwealth Games

Jo Swinson: What recent discussions he has had with the First Minister of Scotland on the award to Glasgow of the Commonwealth games in 2014.

Des Browne: My hon. Friend the Minister of State wrote to the First Minister on 21 September offering our full support for the bid, and I was delighted to hear that Glasgow had won the 2014 Commonwealth games. Officials in the Scotland Office are continuing to work closely with the Scottish Executive on a number of issues relating to the games.

Jo Swinson: I thank the Secretary of State for that reply. I am sure that the whole House will want to join me in congratulating the people of Glasgow and the bid team. The bid received support from all political sides, and now that the games have been secured for Glasgow they will provide a fabulous opportunity to inspire young athletes, such as 16-year-old Matthew Graham in my constituency, the Scottish 1,500 m steeplechase champion. As lottery funding has halved since 1997, and there is uncertainty about grass-roots sports funding because of the lottery and the Olympics, what has the Secretary of State done to ensure that Scotland receives increased funding both for elite and grass-roots sport in the run-up to 2014, so that we can spot the talents of athletes such as Matthew?

Des Browne: Given the hon. Lady's obvious interest in the issue and her specific constituency interest—I congratulate the young person in her constituency who has that talent, which I am sure will be nurtured to allow the best to be made of it—she will know that in the time that we have been responsible for this area of policy, the amount invested in the development of athletics and elite athletes has more than doubled. She asked what I would do. I will ensure that we in Government continue to invest at world-record levels in nurturing and supporting our athletes.

John Robertson: Will my right hon. Friend congratulate the leader of Glasgow city council, Steven Purcell, and the city councillors on all the work that they did? Will he also thank and pass on our good wishes to Jack McConnell, who did a great deal of work to make sure that Glasgow won the 2014 bid and did not, like some people, jump on the bandwagon at the end of the day?

Des Browne: This success, which is a success for Glasgow, for Scotland and for the United Kingdom, ought to be distinguished by our ability across all political parties not to turn it into some sort of partisan Olympic competition, as it were. Because of that, and because the city of Glasgow was the bidder, I contacted the leader of Glasgow city council immediately after the award and expressed my congratulations to him and my support for all those who had been involved in securing the award—those who were present when the bidding process and the voting took place, and those who had been involved in the past. Everybody who has been involved is entitled to credit— [Interruption]—including the present Scottish Executive, and the previous Scottish Executive under the leadership of Jack McConnell.

Electricity Generation

Michael Weir: What recent discussions he has had with Scottish Ministers on electricity generation in Scotland.

David Cairns: There have been no such recent discussions, but my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State recently met Ofgem to discuss a range of issues.

Michael Weir: I note with interest that the Secretary of State recently met Ofgem. The Minister will know that there has been a great deal of concern in Scotland about the discriminatory transmission regime that Ofgem imposed on generators. It is now proposing a double whammy for Scottish generators by also proposing a locational distribution charge for energy generated in Scotland by whatever means it is generated. Will he urge his colleagues at the Department for Business, Enterprise and Regulatory Reform and other Cabinet colleagues to reject this latest bout of madness from Ofgem?

David Cairns: The current transmission arrangements ensure that Scottish consumers are paying lower utility bills than they were paying previously, but of course transmission charges are irrelevant if the generating capacity is not being built. The Scottish Executive had four planning decisions to make about onshore renewable wind farms, and they rejected three of them. If they turn down three wind farms, they will not have the capacity to transmit energy. Until they can come up with an explanation of how they will plug the gap that will be left when they do away with nuclear power, they have no credibility whatever on the issue.

Anne Moffat: Does my hon. Friend agree that a huge percentage of electricity generated in Scotland at present is nuclear? Does he agree that it is naive and populist for the Scottish Executive to rule out nuclear as part of the energy mix?

David Cairns: My hon. Friend is right. Across the UK as a whole about 20 per cent. of electricity is generated from nuclear. In Scotland the figure is nearer 40 per cent., so it is incumbent on those who think that there will be no nuclear in future to explain how we will get the base load, how we will keep the lights on, and how we will make sure that Scotland has a sufficient supply of electricity. Only this week a new proposal for a wind farm is being made in my constituency. Guess who is leading the campaign against it? The local Scottish National party.

John Thurso: The Minister will be aware of the immense potential for renewable energy in the Pentland firth. He will also be aware, because I have told him about it, of the work— [Interruption.]

Mr. Speaker: Order. This noise is unfair to hon. Members who are here for Scottish questions.

John Thurso: The Minister will be aware of the work being done by the project team. The Minister will also know that the responsibilities to enable that to happen fall between the Department for Business, Enterprise and Regulatory Reform and the Scottish Government. How can he use his best offices to ensure the best outcome for renewable energy in the Pentland firth?

David Cairns: The hon. Gentleman is right to say that there is tremendous potential in the Pentland firth, as I saw for myself not once but twice during the past few months. Here at Westminster, the Government are advancing on three fronts at once with the Planning Bill, an energy Bill and the Climate Change Bill to ensure that we can supply the energy that our country needs without wrecking the planet in the process. Many planning issues are the responsibility of the Scottish Executive. We will work closely with them to guarantee that the best advances can be made in ensuring that the potential of the Pentland firth comes on stream, although onshore wind capacity is far more advanced. They have turned down three out of four planning applications in that area, so how on earth do they hope to plug the gap?

Ben Wallace: Yesterday, British Energy announced an interest in two sites in Scotland for the next generation of nuclear power stations. Why should both the United Kingdom's energy policy and its ambition to reduce carbon emissions be held hostage by Scottish nationalists using planning technicalities in a Scottish Parliament? What will the Secretary of State and his colleague do to ensure that the First Minister does not gamble with Britain's environment on constitutional politics?

David Cairns: The Government are entirely clear that it is for the private sector to come forward with proposals for nuclear power stations and to decide where it would like them located. In terms of consents under the Electricity Act 1989 and planning, these matters have been devolved. The Scottish National party is turning down three quarters of applications for new wind farms, but the Conservative party wants a moratorium on all new wind farms, so it would not be able to plug the gap either.

Pensioners (Heating Costs)

Jim Devine: What recent discussions he has had with the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions on the provision of assistance to pensioners in Scotland with the cost of heating.

Des Browne: I speak regularly to my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions. I am pleased to report that more than 1 million winter fuel payments are made in Scotland, and that the payments represent about 34 per cent. of a pensioner's average annual fuel bill.

Jim Devine: I am grateful to my right hon. Friend for that answer. Is he aware that some pensioners in my constituency will not be able to spend that money? They are like the more than 10,000 pensioners in Scotland whose heating systems have been condemned and will not be sorted until next April at the earliest. Although it is easy to condemn the Scottish National party's Government for complacency, we should not play politics with pensioners' lives. Will he convene a meeting to ensure that we get the problem sorted so that our pensioners can have a warm Christmas?

Des Browne: The central heating programme has made a very significant contribution to combating fuel poverty in Scotland. Since it started in 2001, more than 89,000 installations have been done. It is singularly inappropriate that people who qualify for inclusion in the programme, pensioners in particular, should be left waiting over the winter for the installation of a new heating system. There has recently been an increase in the number of people coming to my constituency surgeries complaining about this matter, and I would be happy to meet my hon. Friend to discuss it—but as he points out, this is a devolved responsibility.

Alistair Carmichael: The Secretary of State is right to point out the significant achievements of the central heating scheme promoted by the previous Scottish Executive. Is it not ironic that many Scottish pensioners will not be able to use the central heating systems that were installed because of exceptionally high fuel prices this winter, particularly oil prices? Does he not accept that historically high oil prices present a particular threat to Scottish pensioners, and that his Treasury colleagues should try to find a solution this year?

Des Browne: I think that we all agree that when fuel prices go up, the least well-off are the most challenged by them. We have an agreed definition of what constitutes fuel poverty. The hon. Gentleman cannot suggest with a straight face that this Government have not been alive to that issue across the United Kingdom. He will recall that winter fuel payments were £20 when they were introduced in 1997 for the first time, but they have now risen to £200, and to £300 for households containing someone who is more than 80 years old. They represent more than a third of an average pensioner household's winter fuel bill. He should congratulate the Government on what they have achieved.

Digital Switchover

David Hamilton: When he last met Ofcom to discuss digital switchover in Scotland; and if he will make a statement.

Sandra Osborne: When he last met Ofcom to discuss digital switchover in Scotland.

David Cairns: I speak regularly to Digital UK's national manager for Scotland about switchover, and I also speak to Ofcom in relation to a number of issues, including switchover. Preparatory work is proceeding apace.

David Hamilton: I thank the Minister for his answer. However, 20 per cent. of my constituents do not, and will not, receive digital transmissions, and we will not get the digital changeover until 2010. Surely, as the BBC offers a universal service, we are entitled to a rebate until that changeover takes place.

David Cairns: I have some sympathy with my hon. Friend's point, but he must consider this: if we were to take money out of the BBC's budget as he suggests, it would be difficult for it to meet the challenging timetable that we have for digital switchover. I cannot therefore offer him any comfort in that regard. What matters is that we proceed as quickly as we can with switchover, as is happening throughout the rest of the world. We need particularly to ensure that older and more vulnerable people are given the help and support that they need—I know that he has been campaigning on this issue—and that remains the Government's top priority.

Sandra Osborne: My constituents in the Girvan area are in the first tranche for digital switchover in Scotland, but are currently subject to a postcode lottery for both analogue and digital, whereby some people get Ulster TV, some people get Border, and others get access to STV. Now that the digital switchover is happening, can the Minister guarantee that everyone will be able to access STV as their default ITV channel?

David Cairns: I congratulate my hon. Friend on the work that she has been doing on this issue. I know that she is due to meet Ivan Kennedy, the community liaison executive from Digital UK, in the coming week. I have alerted Digital UK to the fact that that is the issue that she wants resolved, so I hope that when she has that meeting it will be able to provide her with the answer. In the meantime, I understand that there is a website that people can visit, and if they put in their postcode they will be able to find out exactly which channels they will receive.

Angus MacNeil: As the Minister will be aware, these are tense times for the new Gaelic television channel. The political expectation from me—and from him, I hope—is that it will come into existence in the springtime. When does he hope that it will be available on digital terrestrial television?

David Cairns: The hon. Gentleman is correct. The Government have been firmly supporting that service. He will know from the article that I wrote—in Gaelic—in  Scotland on Sunday how committed we are to it. It is our expectation that the service will be up and running this financial year. I understand that it cannot go on Freeview until the switchover, but will be available on other platforms in the meantime. We are committed to ensuring that it happens.

Whisky Industry

Gordon Banks: What recent estimate he has made of the value of the Scottish whisky industry to the economy of Scotland.

Des Browne: The Scotch whisky industry is of massive importance to the Scottish economy, and that is why the Government have announced steps to enhance the protection of Scotch whisky. Exports of Scotch whisky are worth £2.5 billion annually to the Scottish and UK economy.

Gordon Banks: My right hon. Friend will be aware that the Government are soon to bring forward new legislation to protect the Scotch whisky industry, especially in the important overseas market. Can he assure me, and the House, that that legislation will be relevant solely to the Scotch whisky industry, rather than being part of wider regulation, so that the industry can be better protected in the vital overseas market?

Des Browne: I recently had the pleasure of visiting my hon. Friend's constituency to see the importance of the whisky and related industries to the economy of his area. While I was doing that, my hon. Friend the Minister of State was engaged in continuing discussions with the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs about the issue that he raises—the translation into legislation of a European directive to protect the intellectual property rights of Scotch whisky. We had already announced that we as a Government would consult on the legislation, and we are determined that it will be in the best interests of the Scotch whisky industry. Like everyone else, my hon. Friend will have to wait until we announce and publish the legislation that will be consulted upon, but I suggest that all of those who share the best interests of the Scotch whisky industry are unlikely to be disappointed by the legislation.

Alan Reid: The Secretary of State will be aware that the duty the Chancellor charges on whisky is far higher per unit of alcohol than on wine. Will the Secretary of State lobby the Chancellor to equalise rates of duty in the next budget to create a level playing field for the Scotch whisky industry?

Des Browne: I suppose I should declare an interest in this matter, because I have one of the biggest Scotch whisky bottling plants in my constituency—the world-famous Johnnie Walker plant in Kilmarnock. I have a long-standing interest in ensuring a level playing field for Scotch whisky in the United Kingdom and throughout the world. I am pleased to remind the hon. Gentleman of what he already knows, which is that since we came to power, the Chancellor of the Exchequer has frozen the duty on Scotch whisky year on year in order to achieve that very competitiveness.

PRIME MINISTER

The Prime Minister was asked—

Engagements

Shona McIsaac: If he will list his official engagements for Wednesday 28 November.

Gordon Brown: This morning I had meetings with ministerial colleagues and others. In addition to my duties in the House, I shall have further such meetings later today.

Shona McIsaac: Veterans in my constituency welcomed last week's news that priority health care is to be extended to them. However, many of the scars of war are mental and psychological, and I would like my right hon. Friend to tell me what he proposes to do to extend treatment to the soldiers, sailors and air force men affected by them.

Gordon Brown: I thank my hon. Friend for taking up the cause of veterans in her constituency. She is absolutely right; last week the Health Secretary announced that veterans would be accorded priority treatment in the national health service, as they should be. He also announced that there will be a new community-based veterans' mental health care service, which will run for the next two years with independent evaluation. There are 150 mental health professionals working throughout defence, employed by the Ministry of Defence, and we are determined to do what we can to support not only our veterans but all those in our armed forces who do an outstanding job and to whom we owe a debt of gratitude and a duty of care.

David Cameron: The Prime Minister told us that he would deliver honest government, that he would be open, that he would end spin and restore trust, and that he would deliver competence. After the events of the last few days, can he honestly stand there and say that all over again?

Gordon Brown: That is why I have acted immediately to set up two inquiries. All of us on all sides of this House have an interest in integrity in the funding of political parties, and we should do everything in our power to ensure that political party finances are transparent and that everything is above board. That is why what happened was completely unjustifiable. It has got to be investigated as a matter of urgency. Two internal inquiries have been set up within the Labour party, and the Electoral Commission will investigate. I am determined to make sure that political party finances are above board.

David Cameron: The Prime Minister says he must do everything in his power, and he said yesterday that unlawful acts have taken place, so has he asked the police to come in to investigate?

Gordon Brown: That is a matter, as the right hon. Gentleman should know, for the Electoral Commission. The commission has announced an inquiry into this matter. We reported the matter to the Electoral Commission; we have told it that we are setting up two separate inquiries. The commission will run an inquiry and it is its decision as to whether the police are brought in. We are happy to co-operate in any way because, in my view, this is something that has to be cleaned up in the interest of the whole of public life, and I am determined to take that action.

David Cameron: The Prime Minister is wrong—it is not the exclusive competence of the Electoral Commission. I am asking him a simple question: if he thinks that something unlawful has happened, does he not have a duty to call in the police himself?

Gordon Brown: Under every convention, we report the matter to the Electoral Commission, which was set up under a law that we passed with the support of the other parties in the House. The Electoral Commission will decide whether the matter is for the police and we will co-operate in any way possible with it, the police or both. I say to the right hon. Gentleman that it is in everybody's interests for action to be taken against something unjustifiable. The procedures that were followed were not acceptable and any necessary changes in the law will be made. I believe that all parties have an interest in sorting that out.

David Cameron: The public will see the Prime Minister wriggling— [Interruption.]

Mr. Speaker: Order. The right hon. Gentleman will be heard.

David Cameron: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Dennis Skinner: Lord Ashcroft!

Mr. Speaker: Mr. Skinner, be quiet, you know better.  [Interruption.] Order. The hon. Gentleman is out of order and he knows it.

Dennis Skinner: I can't hear him.

Mr. Speaker: Order. I can hear.

David Cameron: We learned this morning that Jon Mendelsohn, whom the Prime Minister appointed, knew for a month about a situation that the Prime Minister called unlawful and unacceptable. How can that person possibly still be in post?

Gordon Brown: Mr. Mendelsohn has issued a statement clarifying what happened. On 3 September, he started employment in the Labour party. He has had no involvement in the donations that have been made. Those donations were happening for four years before he took office. That is why the investigation that should take place is the one that I have set up internally in the Labour party. The inquiry will be led by Lord Harries and Lord McCluskey, a senior High Court judge and a retired Bishop of Oxford.  [Interruption.] We will do everything in our power, as the terms of reference have said, to show that the standards that will be followed in future are acceptable in every area of public life.

David Cameron: So is the Prime Minister telling us that Mr. Mendelsohn knew and did not tell either the Prime Minister or the police? Is that acceptable?

Gordon Brown: If I can put the right hon. Gentleman right, Mr. Mendelsohn says in his statement, which has just been issued, that he was led to understand by the general secretary of the party that this had been cleared with the Electoral Commission. That was the issue before him. He also says that he was unhappy in principle with those arrangements, and that he had approached one of the people involved and was seeking a meeting to sort matters out.
	Mr. Mendelsohn started on 3 September. He was involved in none of the donations that were made. He is not the registration officer reporting to the Electoral Commission, but of course, if anything untoward has happened in that respect, it will be a matter for the inquiry and we will take whatever action is necessary to sort the matter out.

David Cameron: I have to say that the Prime Minister's explanation beggars belief. It takes us to questions about the Prime Minister's own integrity. Does he expect us to believe that someone whom even Labour Members believe to be a control freak was preparing for an election, sorting out the finances, sitting around the table with everyone who is caught up in the scandal, yet did not have the first idea about what was going on?
	We have had 155 days of this Government: disaster after disaster, a run on a bank, half the country's details lost in the post and now this. The Prime Minister's excuses go from incompetence to complacency and there are questions about his integrity. Are not people rightly asking, "Is this man simply not cut out for the job?"  [Interruption.]

Gordon Brown: rose—[Interruption.]

Mr. Speaker: Order. The Prime Minister, too, must get a hearing.

Gordon Brown: The Labour party— [Interruption.]

Mr. Speaker: Order.

Gordon Brown: Our party introduced legislation in 2000 to restrict foreign donors, register donors, have a comprehensive framework for elections and have an Electoral Commission, and we are ready to take any further measures. I hope that there will be all-party support so that everything in party politics is above board, including the use of third-party sources for donations.
	As for competence, I remind the right hon. Gentleman that in 1992, he sat there when interest rates reached 15 per cent. Competence is the lowest interest rates for a generation, the lowest inflation for a generation, the highest employment for a generation, doubling investment in the health service, a minimum wage and properly financing education. We will continue to do our best by the country.  [Interruption.]

Mr. Speaker: Order.

Kali Mountford: While we let the hot air settle, may I tell my right hon. Friend that wind farms are enormously popular in my constituency, with 80 per cent. of people responding to a survey saying that they think they are attractive, produce clean energy and tackle global warming? Will they have to continue to wait for the planning process to produce the wind farm that they want? Will we have to wait and listen to the windbags—[Hon. Members: "Hoorah!]—or will we get a wind farm?

Gordon Brown: I hope that all parties in this House will support the development of wind turbines, both offshore and onshore. That is the only way to meet our target for renewable resources, if it is going to be as high as the European Commission proposes it to be. I believe that there is a duty on all parties in all areas of the country to consider the development of wind turbines.

Vincent Cable: The House has noticed the Prime Minister's remarkable transformation in the past few weeks from Stalin to Mr. Bean  [ Laughter ] creating chaos out of order, rather than order out of chaos. But amidst the administrative bungling and even the sleaze, does he not accept that the most damaging remark over the past week came from the services chiefs, when they accused him of wilfully neglecting the safety and welfare of the young men and women who serve in our armed forces?

Gordon Brown: At every point in the job that I am in, I will do everything in my power to defend and protect the security of our armed forces. I have to tell the hon. Gentleman that the defence budget is rising every year and will continue to rise, and that when we came into power the defence budget in Britain was the fifth largest in the world. It is now the second largest in the world. As for housing, we are spending £5 billion over the next 10 years on armed services accommodation, more than at any point in the history of the armed forces— [ Interruption. ]

Mr. Speaker: Order. Before the hon. Gentleman rises, you have got to be quiet, Mr. Russell.

Vincent Cable: We know about the defence budget, because the Prime Minister signed £5 billion-worth of cheques for the Iraq war, but is not the truth at the end of it that the troops lack adequate equipment, adequate medical care and adequate accommodation? Is not the underlying truth that where the armed forces are concerned, fundamentally, the Prime Minister is not interested and does not care?

Gordon Brown: The chief of the armed services gave a briefing last week, saying that we were better equipped than ever before. That is why we have not only invested the money from the defence budget but, in order to meet the urgent operational requirements of our armed forces, particularly in Iraq and Afghanistan, invested an additional £6.6 billion above the defence budgets that have been announced. Whether it be for tanks, helicopters, night vision equipment, specific help for individual members of the armed forces in contacting their relatives or accommodation at home, we will continue to do everything in our power to help our armed forces do their duty.

Adrian Bailey: In my local authority, the £300 million plus Building Schools for the Future programme is considered vital to accelerate the improvement of educational standards in the borough. Can my right hon. Friend reassure me that none of the money earmarked for that programme will be diverted to pay for schools providing surplus places in areas where they are not needed?

Gordon Brown: I think that my hon. Friend is referring to the debate that is now being held in the House between those who want to spend the £4.5 billion that has been allocated on Building Schools for the Future, which would renovate existing secondary schools and then primary schools, and those who want to divert the money from promises already made to secondary schools into building additional academies beyond the 400 that have been provided for. I believe that existing schools, to which commitments have been made, should have the investment made within them. This affects almost every constituency in the country, and perhaps the Conservative party should think again.

Michael Spicer: How were the public moneys lent to Northern Rock funded? Where in particular did the Bank of England suddenly find a spare £25 billion?

Gordon Brown: As the right hon. Gentleman—[Hon. Members: "He is not."] As he will know, the Bank of England will make funds available in certain circumstances at the behest of the Treasury, by its agreement. That is what happened in relation to Northern Rock. I again ask Opposition Members to think again. They said at the beginning that they were overwhelmingly in favour of putting the money into Northern Rock. Last week, they said that they were against it. I believe that the weight of opinion in the country is that it was the right decision to save that company.

Eric Illsley: My right hon. Friend will be aware that there have been allegations from Members on this side of the House that a lot of the problems relating to binge drinking stem from supermarkets selling alcohol at too cheap a rate. The Licensed Victuallers Association now has documentary proof that certain supermarkets are selling alcohol at the cost of production. Will my right hon. Friend join me in condemning our supermarkets for selling alcohol so cheaply?

Gordon Brown: My hon. Friend might know that, last Wednesday, we held a seminar with members of the retail industry and also with people from the production industry—the brewing industry and the drinks industry—and people who are concerned about what is happening as a result of binge drinking. One of the concerns that was raised was the price of alcohol. Another was the special promotions that were being done by the supermarkets. Another was the intensive advertising by supermarkets, which is encouraging young people in particular to buy substantial quantities of drink. We also looked at whether the drinks industry could run promotion campaigns to educate young people about the dangers of binge drinking. We will be publishing a paper suggesting changes in the next few weeks.

Michael Ancram: In the face of the recent crises that have beset the Prime Minister, particularly this last one, he has told us that he learned about them only at the last possible moment. Why does he think that members of his Government—and, indeed, of the party that he purports to lead—are apparently so intent on keeping him in the dark?

Gordon Brown: When we have acted, whether it be on terrorism, on foot and mouth or on floods, we have acted when it has been necessary to do so and never refused to act. On party political issues, I will tell the House what I said yesterday: I first knew about this on Saturday evening, and I acted immediately.

Natascha Engel: North-East Derbyshire has seen a massive rise in youth employment and training since 1997. What is my right hon. Friend doing to ensure that all young people, especially those who have dropped out of all formal education, are given exactly the same opportunities?

Gordon Brown: I believe that it is right that every teenager should have some training so that they can get jobs for which they are employable. That is why, when we bring forward our measures to expand apprenticeships, to raise the education leaving age for people in part-time or full-time training or education to 18, and to increase the amount of funding for the new deal to enable it to help young people, I hope that there will be all-party support for those measures.

Peter Tapsell: As he wanted so much, and for so long, to be Prime Minister, has the right hon. Gentleman been reflecting on the advice of an earlier, more successful, dealer in gold, King Midas, who warned that we should be careful what we wished for, as we might receive it in a poisoned chalice? Or is he planning to pass the chalice to his charming deputy?

Gordon Brown: I have had debates across the House with the hon. Gentleman over the years, and he has always been very generous in his comments to me until now. I hope that we can continue to agree that this job is an important job, and I will do it to the best of my ability.

Charlotte Atkins: Will the Prime Minister congratulate the UK world skills team, including Jonathan Bourne, who achieved the medallion of excellence and works for a building company in my constituency? Does that success in the skills Olympics and the Government's massive expansion of apprenticeships and quality training indicate that in future young people will be able to fill the 600,000 vacancies in our economy and also improve not only their skills, but their job prospects as well?

Gordon Brown: My hon. Friend is absolutely right and I congratulate the company in her constituency and its workers who have done so well. The skills Olympics will be held in Britain. We are determined that, at that point, we will have increased the number of apprenticeships, as my hon. Friend says, so that we can meet the vacancies that exist in our economy. There are 600,000 vacancies at the moment and I want young British apprentices to get the chance to fill them.

Don Foster: The Prime Minister may be aware of the recently launched Take Tourism Seriously campaign, but do the Government take tourism seriously? If so, why have they further cut the budget of VisitBritain by £17 million over the next three years?

Gordon Brown: I think that the hon. Gentleman will know that over the past few years, particularly when there have been difficulties, we have put more money into tourism to help the tourist industry flourish. I think that he can see that the numbers of people coming to this country—despite some of the difficulties we have had with terrorism and foot and mouth—reflect the intensity of the advertising, and we will continue to do that.

David Chaytor: Will the Prime Minister congratulate Kevin Rudd, the new Labour Prime Minister in Australia, on his recent sweeping election victory and particularly on his speedy decision to ratify the Kyoto protocol? In view of this week's UN report calling for an 80 per cent. cut in CO2 emissions, will Britain and Australia now stand shoulder to shoulder in the war against climate change?

Gordon Brown: I have had the privilege of being able to congratulate Mr. Rudd on his election as the Prime Minister of Australia and I have also phoned the outgoing Prime Minister, Mr. Howard, to thank him for his work in the international community over the past 12 years. Mr. Rudd has announced that he is going to sign the Kyoto treaty immediately, which is in line with what we have done, and he has said that he will lead the way with us in seeking a post-2012 Kyoto agreement. I look forward to working with him against Conservative policies.

Andrew George: Given that there are many constituencies like my own, which incorporates west Cornwall and the Isles of Scilly, where last year five times as many properties were sold to second-home buyers as to first-time buyers, does the Prime Minister really think that it helps to give further millions in capital gains tax cuts to the wealthy to buy and have their second homes when many thousands of local families are desperate for and cannot afford their first?

Gordon Brown: But surely the answer is to build more homes, so I hope that the hon. Gentleman will support the plans that we have set down to raise the amount of house building in this country to 240,000 houses a year and to build 3 million homes by 2020. I know that building more homes is not a popular policy in the Conservative party, but to get affordable housing in every constituency, we need to build more homes. That is what we will do.

Khalid Mahmood: Will my right hon. Friend join me in congratulating the Secretary of State for Innovation, Universities and Skills and the Department for Work and Pensions on changes to the 16-hour rule that will allow young people on jobseeker's allowance into full-time training? That will allow institutions such as the South Birmingham college construction centre, which has a waiting list of 2,000, to get people on to training and then into employment.

Gordon Brown: We are trying to remove every barrier to young people getting the chance of both training and jobs. Given the creation of educational maintenance allowances in addition to the removal of that aspect of the 16-hour rule, I still hope that all parties in the House will support our belief that every young person should have the chance to get at least some education until 18. The difference between us is that we believe in opportunity for all until 18 while the Opposition believe in opportunity just for some.

John Gummer: The Prime Minister told us that his decision not to call an election had nothing to do with the polls. He also told us that his change of policy on death duties had nothing to do with Conservative party policy, so why should we believe his account of the dodgy donors?

Gordon Brown: Because I do what is in the best interests of the country, and am prepared, with my colleagues, to make difficult decisions even when it is uncomfortable to do so. I think the right hon. Gentleman will recognise that during the year we have made difficult decisions, such as those on public sector pay, to get the rate of inflation down. That is why we, unlike many other countries, can look forward to stability and growth.

Ian Lucas: An increase in the number of apprenticeships is a key component of increasing the competitiveness of the United Kingdom economy, but some young people may be deterred from taking them up because of the very low rates paid by some employers. Will my right hon. Friend ask the Low Pay Commission to investigate whether there is any evidence that young people are being deterred, and if there is, will he extend the minimum wage regulations to cover all apprenticeships?

Gordon Brown: I will certainly ask the Low Pay Commission to examine the matter. Although it is independent, it will examine matters relating to the employment of young people as well as the elderly. I believe that our decision to create a minimum wage in this country is one of the biggest decisions by the Labour Government over the past 10 years.
	Since we came to power we have increased the number of apprenticeships from 50,000 to 250,000.  [Interruption.] The Conservative party does not like hearing about the successes with apprenticeships. The number will rise to 500,000 over 10 years. That is what the future of our country is based on. We will look at the remuneration and the education and training of young people, so that we can have the best training in the world.

Patrick Cormack: What does the Prime Minister want for Christmas?

Gordon Brown: I want to— [Interruption.] I might have one day off.

Anne Begg: After the fire on the Thistle Alpha offshore platform on Sunday, the Scottish First Minister said that health and safety should be devolved to the Scottish Parliament. Well, there's a surprise. Would it not be better to concentrate on increasing the prosecution rate and the penalties for those in breach of health and safety legislation for the whole United Kingdom than to pick political fights?

Gordon Brown: As an Aberdeen Member, my hon. Friend has taken a big interest in the matter, and as she knows, a private Member's Bill concerned with those very issues has been before the House during the past year.
	With the expansion of the oil industry over the past 30 years, we have taken health and safety issues very seriously. I believe that whenever incidents have raised questions we have acted immediately—and that is true of all Governments. I understand that proposals are on the table for an extension of the health and safety legislation in this area and for more intensive and higher standards, and I believe that the proper place in which to consider such matters is this United Kingdom Parliament.

David Jones: It would appear that Baroness Jay was aware of the illegal nature of Mr. Abrahams's donations to the Labour party long before the Prime Minister himself. Can the Prime Minister tell us which of his Cabinet colleagues shared her knowledge at the relevant time, or is it sub judice?

Gordon Brown: That is not, I believe, what Baroness Jay said, but the hon. Gentleman's question will be a matter for the inquiry, which will examine all issues relating to this matter. Surely the right thing to do when a problem arises is to investigate it in detail, deal with it, change the procedures if necessary and, if necessary, reform political party funding—which we are prepared to do.

Ken Purchase: The whole country, apart from the Opposition, will be pleased with what the Prime Minister has told us today about the inquiries that he intends to bring about.  [Interruption.]

Mr. Speaker: Order. Hon. Members must let the hon. Gentleman speak.

Ken Purchase: Equally, the whole country would wish the terms of that inquiry to be widened, and perhaps to fill four or five "Panorama" programmes with the audit trail of the Ashcroft money. Will the Prime Minister do that?

Gordon Brown: We agreed the Political Parties, Elections and Referendums Act 2000 as a matter of consensus. There was a consensus in 2000 about the things that needed to be done. I hope that we can proceed to make reforms—including reforms relating to donations from third-party agencies and the timing of donations involving local political finance—by agreement, and I hope that the right hon. Member for Witney (Mr. Cameron) will change his mind about running away from the party talks that were involved in solving this problem.

Roger Gale: Precisely when did the Prime Minister's Leader of the House first learn of the illegal donations to the Labour party?

Gordon Brown: The Leader of the House has made it absolutely clear that the criteria on which she judged donations—[Hon. Members: "When?"] I am explaining this. The criteria were whether the people giving donations were known to her campaign team or were registered with the Labour party. There is not an iota of evidence to suggest that at any time until Saturday the Leader of the House knew that the donation was being given by a third party.

Barry Sheerman: Does my right hon. Friend agree that although the Government have done a great deal for pupils with special educational needs up to the age of 16, there is still a real challenge post-16, and particularly post-18, for young people with severe special educational needs, mental health problems and disability? When will we do more for that group, their carers and their families?

Gordon Brown: We have set up a review into exactly that matter—the special needs of young people and particularly children at school. I believe, again, that there should be all-party consensus about what needs to be done. Let me repeat: our policy is educational opportunity for everyone until 18, not just for some.

Mr. Speaker: Order. A deferred Division is under way in the No Lobby. The pink voting papers were not circulated in the usual way with the Order Paper, but they have been made available to Members in the Vote Office. They are also available in the Lobby.

Middle East

David Miliband: With permission, Mr Speaker, I will make a statement on the middle east peace process, following the Annapolis conference, which I attended yesterday at the US naval academy in Maryland.
	For several years there has been neither peace nor a peace process in the middle east. Insecurity for Israelis and the suffering of Palestinians have fed off each other, deepening divides and fomenting mutual distrust. The conference represents a determined attempt by both sides, and by the United States, to break the cycle of violence and discord. Its significance comes as much from the attendance list as its immediate results; representation from nearly 50 countries showed the degree of concern about the current situation as well as the consensus for action.
	As I pointed out in my contribution yesterday, in 1993 at the signing of the Oslo accords the late Prime Minister Rabin talked of an atmosphere of hope tinged with apprehension; today in the region there is an atmosphere of apprehension tinged with occasional hope. Yesterday represented one such ray of hope, but the context of extremism, terrorism and the dangers of nuclear proliferation provides a spur to action. All present understood that the Annapolis conference could be a success only if it was the start, not the end, of a new drive for peace based on the vision of two states, Israel and Palestine, living side by side.
	There is now for the first time a clear and shared goal. To quote from the joint understanding read out at the beginning of the meeting by President Bush, it is
	"to immediately launch good faith bilateral negotiations in order to conclude a peace treaty resolving all outstanding issues, including all core issues without exception, as specified in previous agreements."
	UN resolutions 242 and 338 provide the agreed foundation for progress.
	There is also a timetable. Today, the parties will meet at the White House; a joint steering committee will meet continuously from 12 December; President Abbas and Prime Minister Olmert will continue their bi-weekly meetings; there will be an international donors conference in Paris on 17 December; the Russian Foreign Minister has offered Moscow as the venue for a review conference by the end of the first quarter of 2008; and I offered London as the venue for a meeting after that. Crucially, there is an end date. All agreed that these negotiations should seek to conclude by the end of 2008.
	There is also a follow-up: the parties have committed themselves to implementing their respective obligations under the road map and have agreed to a US, Palestinian and Israeli mechanism, led by the US, to follow this up. The US has committed itself to monitoring and judging the fulfilment of these conditions. That means an end to settlement construction, the removal of outposts constructed after March 2001 and renewed efforts on security in the occupied territories.
	The rest of the international community will have a vital role to play. We know that peace and prosperity depend on each other. We need a massive upgrade in our collective effort. I am pleased to report that the UK is in the lead. First, we have committed up to $500 million to the Paris donor conference, the first country to do so. That will stand alongside European and American commitments. We look forward to working with Arab colleagues on an Arab economic initiative side by side with the important Arab peace initiative.
	Secondly, our priority is to help to build effective national Palestinian security forces. We have been involved in that effort for several years now. We commit our people, resources and experience to making a difference on the ground. In Nablus, in Bethlehem and in Jericho—where I saw raw recruits for myself 10 days ago—the fight for security is the fight for legitimacy and hope for the Palestinian people. It is often unglamorous, it is always hard and it is absolutely necessary. President Abbas and Prime Minister Fayyad are committed to the task, and we will support them.
	Thirdly, we need to support the parties as they strive for success. Prosperity driven by the private sector needs reform driven by the public sector. That is why the reform and development plan prepared by Prime Minister Fayyad is so important as a statement of intent—about clean government, about responsible budgeting, and about politics based on promises that are made to be kept. That will bear fruit only if Palestinians are given the freedom to work, to trade and to reap the benefits of commerce. The efforts of Tony Blair are vital in that regard, and the announcement last Monday of four projects, with Defence Minister Barak and Prime Minister Fayyad in support, is an important step forward.
	Fourthly, we must not lose sight of Gaza, an integral part of a future Palestinian state. Continuing rocket fire into Israel by extremist groups within Gaza is a reminder of the dangers Israel faces. However, the deteriorating humanitarian situation is a real cause for concern. The UN Secretary-General spoke forcefully to that issue yesterday and we support his efforts to ensure that the interests of the civilian population are not forgotten.
	Fifthly, our immediate focus must be on Israel and Palestine. But any peace must be comprehensive. The current situation in Lebanon vividly illustrates the need for a wider settlement. The prize is full normalisation of relations between Israel and the Arab world. I encouraged the Syrian Foreign Minister to attend the conference when I met him in New York in September, and the presence and speech of the Deputy Foreign Minister was a welcome sign of Syrian engagement.
	There are, of course, plenty of reasons for people to be sceptical about the latest stage in the search for peace. Given the experience of the 16 years since the Madrid conference, we should indeed all be cautious. The road from Annapolis will be hard, but there is a real basis for engagement.
	The unmatched injuries of the Jewish people and the stateless tragedy of the Palestinians make both sides fearful of compromise; but without compromise there is only fear. Thirty years ago, the late President Sadat said of his bid for peace:
	"It is a chance that, if lost or wasted, the plotter against it will bear the curse of humanity and the curse of history."
	We all have a duty to do what we can to challenge the sceptics, to prove them wrong, and to help Palestinians and Israelis live out their common humanity.

William Hague: I thank the Secretary of State for his statement and express strong support for his words and for what he and his counterparts did in Annapolis. The hope that he expressed that the conference will give new impetus to the hope for a final settlement between Israelis and Palestinians is shared across all parties in this country and, indeed, most of the world.
	We welcome the fact that the conference reaffirmed the vision of a negotiated, two-state solution based on the road map. The priority now is, obviously, to build on what momentum has been created and to address some formidable obstacles that remain. Among the greatest threats to the negotiations must be the continued refusal of Hamas to recognise Israel and renounce violence, its rejection of the conference outcome and its complete unwillingness to prevent rocket attacks against Israel. What discussions did the Foreign Secretary have about those issues, and can he explain how Gaza, which he rightly describes as an integral part of the future Palestinian state, will be approached within the negotiations?
	On Israel's part, alongside the freeze on settlement activity to which the Foreign Secretary referred, does he agree that speedy progress on movement and access would make a considerable difference in improving the quality of life for Palestinians and demonstrating that the path of peace brings tangible benefits and the promise of a better life?
	I have a few questions about the process going forward. The Foreign Secretary referred to a timetable for follow-up on the negotiations, including review conferences. However, little has yet been said about the timetable of the negotiations themselves, and even before Hamas came to power neither the Palestinians nor the Israelis had been able to adhere to the previous timetable. At what stage of the road map will those negotiations pick up the thread? How confident is the Foreign Secretary that a realistic timetable for negotiations will emerge, given the expressed intention of concluding a peace treaty by the end of next year?
	Secondly, is the Foreign Secretary confident that there is the sustained commitment needed to push both sides towards the necessary compromises? Did he form the impression at Annapolis that President Bush and his Administration will invest the immense amount of time and political commitment necessary to move this initiative forward?
	What specific role will the Quartet play in the coming months, given that the joint understanding refers only to an
	"American, Palestinian and Israeli mechanism"
	to monitor the implementation of the road map? Does the right hon. Gentleman also see a role for the so-called "Arab Quartet", who have been crucial in marshalling Arab support for the peace process and proposing a basis for wider Arab-Israeli peace?
	The joint understanding issued after Annapolis made no mention of the Syrian-Israeli track, although I understand that that was on the conference's formal agenda. What is the Foreign Secretary's understanding about when that track will be addressed? He referred to Lebanon, which once again is on a knife edge. What steps is Britain taking to try to ensure that the situation does not deteriorate, and that Lebanon does not spiral afresh into violence?
	Finally, Iran is emerging as one of the primary causes of instability in the region. Does the Foreign Secretary share our concern that the nexus between Iran, Hezbollah and Hamas has the potential to derail the peace process? Is it not vital to intensify the peaceful and multilateral pressure on Iran, including effective financial sanctions across the EU?
	Given how many tensions and potential conflicts that there now are in the middle east, is not working to resolve the difference between Israelis and Palestinians one of the highest possible priorities for the international community? Is it not the duty of us all—Governments, Oppositions and nations of every continent—to do our utmost to support that?

David Miliband: I am grateful for the right hon. Gentleman's approach to this matter, and I shall try to deal in detail with all the questions that he asked.
	When I spoke yesterday at the Annapolis conference, I made the point that, although I was obviously speaking on behalf of the British Government, I believed that I was speaking on behalf of all shades of political opinion in the UK. I think that that had a resonance, and it has certainly been backed up by what the right hon. Gentleman has said today.
	At the beginning of his response to my statement, the right hon. Gentleman said that there were formidable obstacles, and at the end he said that the middle east peace process must be one of the highest possible priorities. He is right on both counts.
	Hamas took control of Gaza in June, and it is striking that since then there have been about 1,000 Qassam rocket and mortar shell attacks on Israel. That is a very serious security concern for the Israeli Government, but it should be a serious concern for us all. Equally, I spoke yesterday to the UN Secretary-General about the humanitarian situation in Gaza, and I have also spoken about that to various members of the Israeli delegation. From my visit to the middle east last week, I know that there are ongoing discussions between the Palestinian Authority and the Israeli Government about what is happening in Gaza. President Abbas is the elected leader of all Palestinian people and he was speaking in that role yesterday. That is why it is right that the responsibility for negotiations lies with him, as does the responsibility for deciding when and how to approach the issue of reconciliation among the Palestinian people.
	Three or four months on from Hamas's takeover, and not least in light of the killing two weeks ago of six innocent civilians who were demonstrating peacefully, it is my impression that Hamas's rule in Gaza is doing nothing for its popularity among its own people. However, we should not underestimate the force of Hamas's organisation in Gaza or the strength of its structures there, and it is for President Abbas to lead that process.
	The right hon. Gentleman was right in what he said about movement and access. It makes sense to deal with the security of economic projects one by one. At present, there are some 530 checks on, and other interruptions to, the movement of Palestinian people in the west bank. One approach is to try to tick them off one by one, but another is to build economic growth and tackle each of the security impediments or checkpoints around those poles of economic activity. I think that that second approach lends itself to progress.
	The right hon. Gentleman asked about the timetable for the negotiations. The first meeting on 12 December will be key to setting a forward plan, and I shall be happy to keep him and the House informed about that.
	In respect of the US commitment, the deep freeze of the last six or seven years has been ended by the conference. The strong words of President Bush and Secretary of State Rice, formally and informally, suggest that they realise the depth of commitment that is needed.

David Winnick: President Bush is anti-Palestinian.

David Miliband: I look forward to my hon. Friend's turning his statement into a question.
	There is recognition in the United States, and in the Arab world, that the window of opportunity for a two-state solution is closing for a number of reasons. Unless the opportunity is seized now, the consequences will be very grave indeed, which is why there is not a moment to lose.
	The Quartet will continue to have an important role, but the right hon. Gentleman is right to notice that the structures are being moulded to fit the new circumstances of the negotiations. The approach forged from the Quartet on to the road map required that phase 1 of the road map be completed before phase 3—the final status negotiations—started. One of the big changes at Annapolis is that that distinction has been ended and the parties will start the final status negotiations, but the Quartet has a continuing role, not least in the donors conference next week.
	My hon. Friend the Minister for the Middle East will be in Lebanon in two weeks' time, and we are all waiting day by day, even hour by hour, to see the next step forward, but I agree with the right hon. Gentleman that compromise is essential if Lebanon is to avoid descent into another bloody civil war.
	Many players have the capacity to disrupt the process, but I can assure the right hon. Gentleman that discussions about financial and other sanctions against Iran are ongoing at ministerial and official level among the E3 plus 3 and across the European Union to make sure that we make it absolutely clear to Iran that it has a clear choice—full engagement with the international community, including access to civilian nuclear power, or confrontation and a nuclear arms race in the middle east. The latter is not an option that the rest of the world wants Iran to take and is something it is prepared to do everything in its power to prevent.

Mike Gapes: I, too, welcome the modest beginning of this new start. The Foreign Secretary referred several times to the situation in Gaza, and to the division of Gaza from the rest of the Palestinian Authority. What can the Quartet and our Government do to bring about the reconciliation of the Palestinian people and ensure that there is a viable two-state solution, with one Palestinian Authority governing both parts of the Palestinian territories for the benefit of the people of Gaza?

David Miliband: My hon. Friend may have noticed that on Monday the spokesman of the President of the United States said he was determined to support a two-state solution in the middle east, not a three-state solution. That certainly remains our view.
	On what we can do to promote reconciliation, we have to recognise that President Abbas is the key player. One hundred and twenty-nine people—innocent Palestinians, many of them—were killed in the attempted coup in June. It is for President Abbas, as the elected leader of all the Palestinian people, to lead his people and seek the reconciliation of which my hon. Friend spoke. I am convinced that the moderate majority, in Gaza as well as the west bank, wants a clean, effective administration that can govern in the interests of all the people. That is the best way forward. The political horizon that has been established can give credibility to President Abbas, and that is the best way we can support him.

Michael Moore: I, too, thank the Foreign Secretary for his statement and for coming to the House so soon after the conference concluded. All of us in the Chamber recognise that it was no small achievement to get everybody to Annapolis in the first place and to reach any kind of agreement as a result, so we do not want to downplay the importance of what has been achieved, but does the Foreign Secretary recognise that the brief reference in his statement to the crisis in Gaza was more than was managed in the official communiqué, and that without serious attention to the problems there no deal over the next 12 months will get anywhere? Does he agree that there is not enough in the agreement to offer any prospect of an end to the choking of Gaza's economy, which exacerbates the humanitarian crisis? Does he accept that although we all demand that Hamas satisfy the Quartet principles, not least the end of the deadly missile fire into Israel, there must be diplomacy and engagement through neighbouring Arab countries to work towards fulfilment of those criteria, not simply continuing to offer the people of Gaza international sanctions and the threat of indefinite isolation?

David Miliband: The hon. Gentleman is right to distinguish between what was agreed yesterday and the process that has been set up. He is right that the cautious promise that comes out of yesterday's meeting is about the process, and the shared goal, rather than what was agreed. The intention was not to produce a comprehensive blueprint; it was to produce a structure that could deliver a serious process that would enable us to reach the goal that we share.
	In respect of Gaza—I have addressed this issue a couple of times already—there is a political leadership of all the Palestinian people. It is up to them to lead the process of reconciliation. I agree that we must be attentive to the economic, as well as the humanitarian, situation. There is hardly an economy left in Gaza. Some 60 or 70 per cent. of the people are completely dependent on UN aid. The situation with power supplies, which the Secretary of State for International Development and I addressed in our statement on 30 October, is a cause of deep concern.
	It is relevant to look at the history of the period between 1988 and 1993. The Palestine Liberation Organisation went through the same debate that is going on in Gaza at the moment, about whether it was worth engaging in a peaceful process. After 1993, when the PLO decided to recognise Israel and to engage in peaceful and productive relations, we had the most intense period of peacemaking that had been seen since 1967. So, of course we must not turn our eyes away from the humanitarian situation, but equally we have to be clear about the real basis on which the humanitarian situation can be addressed.

Gerald Kaufman: When my right hon. Friend refers to an end to settlement construction, does that include huge settlements such as Ma'ale Adumim on the outskirts of Jerusalem? What is being done about an end to the building of the illegal wall and an end to the 500 checkpoints? When he talks about Gaza, will he remember that—as I was told at a UN conference in New York, which I participated in last week—80 per cent. of the inhabitants of Gaza subsist solely on UN funds? Does he accept that, however odious Hamas is, there will be no peace until Hamas is involved?

David Miliband: My right hon. Friend speaks with real experience and authority on this issue. I am grateful for his correction. I said that 60 or 70 per cent. of Gazans were dependent on UN aid; he said that it was 80 per cent. I understand the depth of his feeling on the matter. On his last point, I certainly believe that we can get a solution only if we engage the hearts and minds of the people who voted for Hamas in the election in June. It is vital that a new Palestinian state carries legitimacy and support from all the Palestinian people.
	On borders, and the settlements, which I saw when I drove from Jerusalem to Jericho, there is a critical issue about the so-called E1 part of the settlement plan. It is clear that expansion there would deal a very deep blow to the prospects of a viable Palestinian state. I believe that the basis of a deal will be around the 1967 borders and will include land swaps to deal with small items around the edge. The deal will have to be on that basis; otherwise the Palestinian state is not going to be the viable entity that we all want to see. That raises profound questions for settlement activity and for the outposts that have been have constructed since March 2001, as I said in my statement. The announcements from the Government of Israel are an important step forward in that respect. There was the statement from Prime Minister Olmert that he was determined to fulfil all the obligations under the road map. However, it is important that that is followed through.

Malcolm Rifkind: The concession by both the Israelis and the Palestinians at Annapolis that the United States, not themselves, would in future be the judge of the implementation of the road map on security and settlements could be a historic breakthrough. However, that will obviously depend on whether President Abbas of the Palestinian Authority can deliver the security requirements in Gaza, which at the moment he cannot. Will the Foreign Secretary therefore accept that the single most important contribution that the international community—and perhaps, in particular, the Arab states of the region—could make over the next few months would be to show unambiguous support for President Abbas and to put pressure on Hamas in order to deliver the ability for progress to be made?

David Miliband: The right hon. and learned Gentleman alights on a very significant point in the statement yesterday. It is a point that I think was still being discussed late into the day and night before the Annapolis conference. It is a significant position: the United States will be the honest broker in terms of road map commitments. He is right that there is a chicken-and-egg quality to the debate. Security is the basis for progress, but political progress can enhance the efforts towards security. I completely agree that the Arab states have a critical role to play. That is why the Arab peace initiative is important. I do not know, but my impression is that, in the year 2000, when the then President Arafat was trying to decide whether to support the plan that had been brokered by President Clinton, the lack of wholehearted support from the Arab world certainly weighed in his decision—let me put it no stronger than that. If the Arab world—the 22 states from the Arab League—is now determined to recognise that a two-state solution is the best bulwark against extremism, and getting that state and building it up is the best way forward, that would be a significant change. I can assure the right hon. and learned Gentleman that, in all my discussions with Arab partners, I am trying to emphasise not just the goal, but the political strategy that is needed to get there.

David Winnick: I accept entirely the genuine commitment of my right hon. Friend, but does he accept that, time and again in recent years, the Palestinians have been promised the sort of outline programme that he has described today, and yet there has been no real improvement in the lives of Palestinians, let alone a sovereign independent Palestinian state? If we were Palestinians and had suffered as they have suffered over the last nearly 60 years, would we really believe that what happened at a conference would make any difference?

David Miliband: I would go further than my hon. Friend: things have got worse for the Palestinian people. The Palestinian suffering and Israeli insecurity are two sides of the same coin. Things are worse now than they were seven years ago. If one looks back to 1967, one can see that the divides are deep and growing—not least because of the bloodshed that has happened since then. I do not know whether my hon. Friend has had a chance to look at yesterday's speech by Prime Minister Olmert, in which he graphically described the suffering of the Palestinians. That was a striking part of the discussions.
	Do I understand the scepticism that people around the world will have about this process? Yes. Do I share the caution that is important in this process? Absolutely. The worst thing we can do is to say that one conference, and the agreement to a follow-up mechanism, is going to bring peace tomorrow. It is not. We have a long road ahead, and caution is the only way in which we can approach this. However, engagement is the only way in which we are going to make this work. Although our role is not as central as those of the main players—the decisions are going to have to be made by Israel and the leaders of the Palestinian Authority and the future Palestinian state—we can try to support the process, without illusions and certainly without making false promises to people who feel that they have been betrayed for too long.

Elfyn Llwyd: On behalf of my party and the SNP, I commend the right hon. Gentleman for the work that he has been doing in the past few weeks and wish him well in this arduous process. To be credible, the Annapolis process will have to overcome two remaining taboos: first, that the Palestinians can deliver ongoing security to Israeli under conditions of occupation, and, secondly, that a divided Palestine can bring forth a sustainable peace. I welcome what Prime Minister Olmert said the other day about no further building, but does that mean no further settlements, or no further extension of the current 149 settlements? When will the 500 road blocks start to be removed from the west bank? I congratulate the right hon. Gentleman on his work thus far and I hope that he keeps up the pressure, because, despite the scepticism, there is a glimmer of hope, and we all hope it will come through.

David Miliband: I am genuinely grateful to the hon. Gentleman for his support. On the 500 checkpoints, a shift in relation to the first 21 was announced by Defence Minister Barak last week. That was associated with the four economic projects that Tony Blair is taking forward.
	In respect of the freeze on settlements, the hon. Gentleman is absolutely right to point out that one person's freeze is another person's continuation of the settlements that have already been given planning permission. There is considerable detailed work to be done. Given the great percentages—96 or 97 per cent.—that will decide on the future of a Palestinian state, the matter may seem small, but for the people concerned, it is a big thing whether they are on the Palestinian or Israeli side. That is exactly what the detailed negotiations will have to address.

Louise Ellman: I thank the Foreign Secretary for his constructive efforts to try to bring justice to both Israelis and Palestinians. Does he feel confident that enough measures can be put in place to prevent a renewal of the terrorism that sabotaged previous attempts to find a negotiated two-state solution?

David Miliband: My hon. Friend has a distinguished record of highlighting such issues. The precise answer to her question of whether measures can be taken to provide security is yes; as to whether they will be taken, that is what we have to work towards. I am in no doubt about the commitment of President Abbas and Prime Minister Fayyad to leading the development of a Palestinian security infrastructure in which people have confidence, but we are engaged in a race against time.

James Clappison: May I join in the welcome extended to the Foreign Secretary for his remarks today, including his remark that Hamas must face up to responsibility for the rocket attacks on Israel? Nothing should prevent humanitarian aid from going to those who need it in Gaza, but is it not absolutely clear that rocket attacks do absolutely nothing to assist the people there in their suffering? Is it not time that people stopped making excuses for Hamas, and that it faced up to its responsibilities?

David Miliband: The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right: the rocket attacks do nothing for the interests of the Palestinian people. In fact, they undermine those interests. It is urgent that the whole international community, including in the Arab world, does as much as possible to prevent that. The discussions that I had in Egypt last week about the smuggling through its crossings is obviously an important part of the solution.

Jeremy Corbyn: Is the Foreign Secretary confident that the talks have shown sufficient respect for the democratic process in Palestine? Apparently, Hamas is not represented at the talks, and there have not been any direct representations from or to it. Whatever one thinks of Hamas, clearly it is a factor. It also has a large number of elected parliamentarians, many of whom are currently in prison in Israel. Is it acceptable for an occupying power—that is, Israel—to imprison a large number of elected parliamentarians and then pretend that it is undertaking negotiations to bring about peace? Is he confident that the parliamentarians will be released soon?

David Miliband: In respect of the arrested parliamentarians, I am happy to say that I agree with my hon. Friend that the situation is not acceptable. As I made clear in the House in July, we have serious concerns about the issue. The parliamentarians need to be either charged or released—and some of them have been. I will get the precise figures on what has happened to the 44 who were originally arrested. I do not have in my head the precise number who have been released or charged, but I will certainly write to my hon. Friend about the matter. On whether I am confident that President Abbas represents the aspirations of the Palestinian people, the answer is yes. On whether I recognise that there is deep division within the Palestinian community, the answer is yes. On whether it is the job of political leadership to overcome that division, the answer is also yes.

Crispin Blunt: The Foreign Secretary spoke hopefully about the weakening of Hamas in Gaza, following the isolation of Hamas and the blockade of Gaza, and about conditions there. Is it not an irony that although there is a significant difference between Hamas and Salafist movements such as al-Qaeda, recent polls indicate that the ambition of 71 per cent. of Palestinian children in Gaza is to become a martyr, so we are in danger of driving people from supporting Hamas to supporting something a whole lot worse?

David Miliband: The hon. Gentleman is right that there are grave dangers. One of the important points that I discussed with Israeli counterparts in the past 10 days is the fact that the alternative to President Abbas and Prime Minister Fayyad is a very dangerous one. That is why we need to make progress with the current Palestinian leadership. The hon. Gentleman is right to say that the battle for the hearts and minds of young Palestinians—Palestine has a very young population, along with many other Muslim countries—is key. First, the way forward on the issue has got to be through addressing conditions on the ground. An immiseration strategy is no strategy for winning hearts and minds. That is why the humanitarian concerns are important. Secondly, the political horizon is important, too. There has to be a combination of change on the ground and a political horizon in which people can believe, with leaders who can deliver; that, in the end, is the way to win them back.

Phyllis Starkey: The Foreign Secretary has re-expressed the British Government's view that all the settlements—not just those that Israel regards as illegal under its law—are an obstacle to peace, in that they preclude the two-state solution. Thus far, in its agreements with Israel, the European Union has always maintained its position on which parts of the territory are Israel, and which are not. Can the Foreign Secretary assure me that that line will be maintained until there is an agreement between the Israelis and the Palestinians, which may slightly alter the position?

David Miliband: I am happy to confirm that there is no change in our positions. The key is detailed negotiations between the parties. There are dangers in saying that it is up to the parties to take the issue forward on a bilateral basis, but in the end the compromises and the leadership will have to come from the leaders of Israel and the leaders of a future Palestinian state. As was pointed out by the former Foreign Secretary, the right hon. and learned Member for Kensington and Chelsea (Sir Malcolm Rifkind), the role of the United States as an honest broker is a shift—it has never played that role before—and the facilitation, encouragement and drive that will have to come from the international community will have to be subtle and careful. Detailed discussions about settlements and land swaps, given the basic parameters that were set out in 2000-01, remain to be held.

Steve Webb: If it was right in principle for successive Governments to talk directly to the political representatives of terrorist groups in order to achieve peace in Northern Ireland, why is it not right in principle for the international community to talk to the political representatives of Hamas?

David Miliband: There are many lessons from Northern Ireland that it is worth trying to apply around the world, not least as regards policing, but one distinction that the hon. Gentleman might want to think about when answering his own question is the distinction between the Provisional IRA and the Real IRA; that distinction emerged as an important part of the peace process in the past 10 years. The deep debate within the Palestine Liberation Organisation between 1988 and 1993 led it and its supporters to conclude that a peaceful process was the only way forward. Hamas has not yet made that move, so the hon. Gentleman should be careful about suggesting that there is an exact parallel between Northern Ireland and Palestine to support his case. However, I am happy to continue this discussion with him.

Andrew Dismore: My right hon. Friend was correct to draw attention to the hundreds of rocket attacks from Gaza, including one on a primary school in Sderot on 11 September. Hamas also used a UN school as a launch pad in Beit Hanoun in October. Will he confirm that if Hamas is to be involved in the process, the three previous preconditions must stick, including the requirement that it ceases violence and terrorism against Israel?

David Miliband: Yes, but I am sure that my hon. Friend would agree that we do not want to get into a position in which Hamas's deliberations become a veto or a block on the political dialogue. An agreement hammered out by President Abbas and put to all the Palestinian people can trump the Hamas card, because in the end the Hamas argument is either, "No one will deliver a Palestinian state to you," or "We're the only people who can deliver a Palestinian state to you." If President Abbas is able to do that, that is the best way to undercut Hamas.

Tony Baldry: The International Development Committee visited a soap factory in Ramallah piled high with simple olive oil soaps. It simply could not get those soaps out of the west bank because of the security checks and so on. No one should kid themselves that getting trade and jobs going in the west bank will not require someone with authority to broker a deal. Is that Tony Blair's task? If so, that is very welcome, because if the United Nations Relief and Works Agency cannot deliver it, no one else will be able to do so. It will require someone with a capacity for mediation to kick-start the west bank economy.

David Miliband: The hon. Gentleman makes an important point. It was notable that yesterday, the European commissioner, Benita Ferrero-Waldner, talked about the release of some cut flowers and dried fruits. Perhaps I can refer to her the question of the soap factory that the hon. Gentleman raised. The former Prime Minister, Tony Blair, has focused on new economic projects, but I am sure that he has included in his discussions existing economic projects that are blocked. I am certainly happy to draw to the attention of the relevant authorities the case that the hon. Gentleman raised.

Tony Lloyd: The whole House will appreciate the Foreign Secretary's cautious realism. May I ask him a specific question about the role of the Arab states? It is obvious that they have influence even on Hamas, and can be influential in making sure that Lebanon is contained, which would be helpful. How much did public opinion in those Arab states feature in those discussions because, in the end, it is important that Arab public opinion plays a role to make sure that Arab states have the freedom to act progressively and constructively?

David Miliband: My hon. Friend makes a very profound point. The position of Arab public opinion featured more in the informal discussions than in the formal ones. There is growing recognition of it in the leadership that Saudi Arabia has provided, for example, in the Arab peace initiative, and in the determination of the Egyptian Foreign Minister, who happened to be on the same overnight plane as me, so I had a chance to have a further discussion with him following my meeting with him last week. There is recognition of the fact that public opinion needs to know that the delivery of a Palestinian state is a viable prospect, because without that there is a threat to the stability of the whole region, which is extremely dangerous for all the countries concerned.

Nicholas Winterton: While I personally perceive the meeting between Prime Minister Olmert, President Abbas and President George W. Bush as tremendously encouraging, does the Foreign Secretary not agree that the major responsibility—security and Hamas are clearly critical, and that is President Abbas's responsibility—is the decisions made by the Israelis, which will make or break any future peace agreement? The settlements, the wall and the Palestinians' freedom to trade are critical to progress.

David Miliband: The hon. Gentleman is right that they are critical to progress, but it takes two to tango in this process. We will need many, many steps by both sides. He used the phrase "make or break", and the frightening thing is that there are many things that could break this process. There are plenty of wreckers and plenty of difficult compromises that could wreck the process, so it is right to be cautious. However, there is symmetry to the issue: the Palestinians' suffering and the Israelis' insecurity are two sides of the same coin, and both need to be addressed.

Richard Burden: May I congratulate my right hon. Friend on a perceptive and balanced statement? I endorse what he said about President Abbas being the president of all Palestine, and that it is up to the Palestinians themselves to lead their own process of reconciliation. Does he agree, however, that the international community has a role in not making matters more difficult—something that I fear that we did after the election of Hamas in 2006 and up to the events of June 2007? Will he clarify the fact that the important freeze on settlements includes the E1 plan, which is of tremendous significance in the west bank?

David Miliband: On the latter point, I am sorry if what I said earlier sowed confusion rather than clarity. I am absolutely clear that the extension of settlements into the E1 area would set back the process of building a viable Palestinian state, and I will check the record to make sure that I have not suggested the opposite. My hon. Friend is right that the international community must not make things worse—I hope that we can aspire to do better than that—but we should probably save for another occasion a longer discussion of the history of how we got here. As for how we move forward, there is a process in place: it is the only game in town, and I suggest that is where we should focus our efforts.

Michael Fabricant: The Foreign Secretary and other right hon. and hon. Members rightly raised the question of rockets, 1,100 of which have been fired in the past 12 months, resulting in more than 300 injuries and 15 deaths. Whatever we think about the security fence—in many ways, it is odious—it has served to protect many Israelis from suicide bombings, which have not taken place in Israel for many months. The Foreign Secretary alluded to the talks with Egypt on the smuggling of arms into Gaza. Will he amplify precisely what has been agreed, because smuggling is a major cause of destabilisation?

David Miliband: I am sorry to disappoint the hon. Gentleman, but I cannot provide that amplification, because while we have had discussions, to suggest that they were negotiations would probably go beyond the United Kingdom's remit. What I do know is that the countries of Egypt and Israel are in intensive discussions about the issue. It is not a new issue—smuggling has gone on for a long time—but I gained the impression that there was a real commitment on both sides to try to address it, because it is not in either side's interest.

Brian Iddon: Hospital consultants in Gaza are regularly reduced to tears, because they are losing increasing numbers of patients, including extremely young children, whom they know they can save. There is a lack of equipment, as well as basic medicines, and intensive care cots of children are broken. The doctors accompany very sick patients to checkpoints only to watch them die there. Will my right hon. Friend therefore make a pledge to the House that he will do everything in his power to open safe passages for those sick patients either to the west bank or to Israeli hospitals, so that those lives can be saved?

David Miliband: My hon. Friend makes the important point that while the words "humanitarian tragedy" can seem antiseptic or clichéd, there is real life-and-death suffering. I am certainly happy to follow up any particular cases that he wishes to raise, but I can assure him that when we talk about humanitarian tragedy, whether with the UN or with any of the other bodies involved, we bring it down to the human scale, and that is what he has done.

Mark Pritchard: Does the Foreign Secretary agree that any final settlement on a two-state solution can be realised only if Israel's security is guaranteed? If he does, would he consider a new innovation and extend an invitation to Israel to become a member of NATO so that its future security is guaranteed?

David Miliband: It is shared ground on both sides of the House that the security of the state of Israel is half the bargain—the other half is a viable Palestinian state. When I was in Israel—this may disappoint the hon. Gentleman—I discussed the matter with the Prime Minister and the Foreign Minister, and they were much more interested in joining the European Union than they were in NATO.

Mark Hendrick: Earlier, my right hon. Friend made a distinction between those who vote for Hamas and Hamas itself. Does he accept that Hamas is as much a social movement as it is a political movement, and that in bringing about a reconciliation, while it is important that President Abbas plays a pivotal role, everyone else, including the Arab states, the EU and the UN has a role to play in bringing about reconciliation, otherwise we will end up with a three-state solution by default rather than the two-state solution that we would like?

David Miliband: My hon. Friend makes an important point. I am not sure about the term "social movement", but it is certainly the case that Hamas provides an infrastructure of support that has been recognised by some of the Palestinian people in Gaza. Hamas has certainly fed off the sentiment that corruption in the Palestinian Authority is a real source of injury to the Palestinian people, and in that sense I very much agree with his comments.

Martin Linton: On the question of settlements, does my right hon. Friend agree that Prime Minister Olmert needs to promise not just an end to the construction of new settlements and expansion outside the boundaries of existing settlements—I understand that that is all that he has promised so far—but a complete end to all construction within existing settlements and the release of areas for future settlements such as the E1 area that my right hon. Friend mentioned, if he wants the talks to succeed? It would not be fair to expect Palestinian politicians to negotiate while construction is still under way.

David Miliband: There are confidence-building measures to do with what happens to the settlements in the short term but, in the end, this is about the borders of a Palestinian state and the borders of Israel. We face the prospect that over the next year those issues can be addressed in detail, and that is the best way to get this sorted out once and for all.

Point of Order

Greg Clark: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. As you know, the Minister for the Cabinet Office is responsible for information assurance across government. In July, he received a report, relevant to our forthcoming debate, that was critical of the Government's preparedness. I tabled a parliamentary question last Thursday, scheduled for reply yesterday, asking when he read that report and what action he had taken. Last night, I was given a holding answer. Can you advise me, Mr. Speaker, why it should take five days for a Minister to search his memory to discover when he read a report and which actions had been taken, and how best I can get him to apply his own Cabinet Office guidelines that named day questions should be answered on the day named in the question?

Mr. Speaker: I am responsible only for my own memory, not for Ministers' memories, and it is very good indeed.

BILL PRESENTED

Education and Skills

Secretary Ed Balls, supported by The Prime Minister, Mr. Chancellor of the Exchequer, Secretary Des Browne, Mr. Secretary Hutton, Mr. Secretary Hain, Mr. Secretary Woodward, Mr. Secretary Denham, Jim Knight, Caroline Flint, Malcolm Wicks and Mr. David Lammy, presented a Bill to make provision about education and training; and for connected purposes: And the same was read the First time; and ordered to be read a Second time tomorrow, and to be printed. Explanatory notes to be printed. [Bill 12].

Opposition Day
	 — 
	[2nd Allotted Day]

HM Revenue and Customs

Mr. Speaker: We now come to the debate on the first Opposition motion. I inform the House that in both debates I have selected the amendment in the name of the Prime Minister.

George Osborne: I beg to move,
	That this House is deeply concerned at the Government's failure to protect the personal details of 25 million citizens; believes this security breach is due to systemic failures at HM Revenue and Customs; notes the inconsistencies between the version of events set out by the Chancellor of the Exchequer in his statement of 20th November and that revealed by the Government emails released by the National Audit Office on 22nd November; and calls on the Chancellor of the Exchequer to provide a comprehensive explanation about how the security breach occurred, why previous warnings about data security were ignored and what policy changes will be introduced to protect the public in future.
	Eight days ago the Chancellor had to come to the House and tell us that the Government had failed in their first duty to protect the public. He had to tell us of the incompetence in his Department that had led to the personal details of every child in the country being lost and the bank account numbers of every family in the country going missing. He said at the very end of his statement that he would
	"of course, keep the House updated of any further developments."—[ Official Report, 20 November 2007; Vol. 467, c. 1104.]
	In the eight days since then, the Chancellor's version of events has been contradicted by the internal e-mails published by the National Audit Office. We have discovered that, contrary to what he said, senior officials in HM Revenue and Customs were involved in the key decisions. Further evidence has emerged of systemic failure in the Chancellor's Department, and still there is no sign of the missing data. Yet, instead of keeping the House updated on these developments, the Chancellor has on two occasions since then avoided coming to the Chamber to make a statement. That is why this debate is necessary. It allows us to hold one of the most senior members of the Government accountable for one of the most catastrophic mistakes made by the Government.
	The first thing that we should be told today is whether the Chancellor is any closer to finding out where those missing discs are. He has ordered that a letter be sent out to about 7 million people, telling them that their family details and bank account numbers are
	"likely to still be on government property".
	How on earth does he know that? We all hope that it is true, but I am not aware of any positive evidence to support the statement that was sent to 7 million people. Perhaps the Chancellor can provide it today. I am willing to listen to that evidence. He can intervene on me at any point, or wait until his own speech. At the moment, we have evidence that the Government are searching the premises of external businesses such as TNT, so I would like to know how he can tell people that the discs are likely to still be on Government property.
	We have also discovered that in trying to reassure people, the Treasury appears to have compounded its mistake by sending to some members of the public letters that include the personal details and national insurance numbers of other people. Those are the apology letters. The Financial Secretary shakes her head. She is obviously not aware of what is going on in the country. Let me read a couple of examples that have been brought to my attention. First, a member of the public states:
	"I have just had an apology letter {dated 21 November, 07} from Dave Hartnett {Acting Chairman} of HM Revenue & Customs apologising about the error of losing my personal child benefits data, including my bank account...which I was expecting. However, its ironic...I've also received 7 other apology letters that should have been sent to other members of the public in the same predicament! I've got all their National Insurance Numbers, their Child Benefit Ref. Number, Name and address. It really is...an absolutely awful mistake when they are trying to reinstill confidence.
	I have of course reported this to the HM Revenue & Customs helpline...I spoke to a gentleman... He made me aware I was not in the minority...this had happened to a number of individuals and asked me to relay the National Insurance No's".
	My hon. Friend the Member for Banbury (Tony Baldry) brought to my attention another case involving a constituent of his who has just been sent a letter of apology that includes the names and national insurance numbers of someone other than them. The error is being compounded as we speak by the release of such letters. Perhaps the Chancellor could tell us a little more about that when he replies.

Nick Palmer: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

George Osborne: Of course. Perhaps the hon. Gentleman has received such a complaint from a constituent of his.

Nick Palmer: I am interested that the hon. Gentleman has moved from 500,000 records to single records. If he feels that the issue is important, as he seems to, is he not concerned that 90 per cent. of Conservative Back Benchers are not present, and that those who are present are mostly talking to each other rather than listening to him?

George Osborne: I am talking about 25 million people whose information has been lost. I suppose we have the worst 10 per cent. of the Labour party on the Government Benches.
	Perhaps the Chancellor can explain what he has been doing in the past eight days to keep us up to date with the search for the missing discs. The second thing that he must do today is account to the House for not telling the British public the whole truth about how their personal details came to be lost.
	When the Chancellor spoke to us last week, he wanted us to believe that it was all the fault of what he said in his statement was
	"a junior official in HMRC".
	He repeated that when he referred to someone "at a junior level". In reply to the hon. Member for Coventry, North-West (Mr. Robinson)—the paymaster general to the Brownites in more ways than one—the Chancellor said:
	"It cannot be left to someone at a junior level in the organisation to decide whether information, especially information of this nature, should be downloaded".—[ Official Report, 20 November 2007; Vol. 467, c. 1101-1114.]
	Let me put this in terms which I think are acceptable to you, Mr. Speaker. We now know that what the Chancellor told the House was not close to an accurate statement of what actually happened. We now know that it was not left to someone at a junior level in the organisation to make that decision. Thanks to the e-mails released two days later—they were released not by the Treasury, by the way, but by the National Audit Office; we still have not heard anything from the Treasury—we have discovered that senior officials at HMRC were involved in the decision.
	Everyone has seen those e-mails. It was a senior business manager who replied to the first request from the NAO for the information on 13 March. It was that senior business manager who rejected the NAO's request that the address and bank account details be removed, on the grounds that it would cost too much money—not something that the Chancellor has ever told us. The child benefit process manager, the senior official in charge of the entire child benefit system, as I understand it, was copied into those e-mails and was aware of the discussion about whether to send the information.
	Those are not junior officials or lowly clerks—96 per cent. of the staff of the Revenue and Customs are on more junior grades than the most junior civil servants involved in this decision. Why did not the Chancellor tell the whole truth? The political editor of the BBC reported:
	"I am told that when he spoke to the Commons the Chancellor had not seen the e-mails and had not been told of the potential involvement of a senior official."
	That is what the political editor of the BBC said, reporting the conversations that he had with the Chancellor of the Exchequer, I guess, or with the Chancellor's special advisers or whoever he talks to in the Department.
	Is that report true? Can the Chancellor tell us now that when he spoke to Parliament, he had not been told of the potential involvement of a senior official? Are we to believe that the Chancellor has so little grip in his Department that when he spoke to Parliament, he did not know that his own senior officials had been copied into and involved in those decisions? Are we to believe that in the 10 days that he had to prepare for that statement, he did not ask to see the internal correspondence that was published just a couple of days later? Or did he want us all to believe that it was all down to some lowly official and that no Government of any colour could prevent such a thing from happening? Ignorance or deceit—neither is much of a defence for a man who holds the highest office in the land.
	The involvement of senior officials is—

Mr. Speaker: Order. I have called before, on another occasion, for temperate language. I ask the hon. Gentleman to withdraw the word "deceit"— [Interruption.] Order. There is only one referee in the Chamber.

George Osborne: Let us be generous, then, and just call it ignorance.

Hon. Members: Withdraw!

Mr. Speaker: Order. That is fair. That is a withdrawal.

George Osborne: Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The involvement of senior officials is not the only inconsistency between what the Chancellor said to the House and what now appears to be the case. He told us that the reason that he had delayed telling the public and Parliament about the loss of personal data was—I quote from his statement—that
	"the banks were adamant that they wanted as much time as possible to prepare".
	He said:
	"Some small institutions asked for a couple of weeks".—[ Official Report, 20 November 2007; Vol. 467, c. 1102-1110]
	The British Bankers Association issued a press release the moment he sat down saying that it
	"must correct the statements made by the Chancellor of the Exchequer in his address to the House of Commons today that any bank asked for any extension to the delay in announcing the security breach by HMRC...At no point did the banks request a period of weeks, as the Chancellor stated".
	Who is telling the truth? Is it the banking system or the Chancellor? Is it the e-mails from the NAO or the Chancellor? I guess that the public will decide.
	The public will also decide on the third issue that needs addressing today: HMRC's systemic failure to look after people's personal information over a number of years. The Prime Minister went to great lengths to deny that failure when he was questioned by my right hon. Friend the Leader of the Opposition at Prime Minister's questions last week—and we know why. The Prime Minister presided over this department and its predecessors for longer than anyone in the past 100 years, so he knows that if there is evidence of systemic failure, the blame lies with him.
	The evidence is compelling. In September 2005, an unencrypted CD-ROM containing the bank details of taxpayers went missing. What did the Treasury say at the time? It said:
	"This is a one-off incident...we are urgently reviewing our procedures to make sure this type of incident does not happen again".
	Of course it did happen again. In May, the details of 42,000 families who are claiming tax credits were sent to the wrong people. The Treasury then said
	"we have robust procedures in place to protect information provided by"
	the public. But of course they did not, because earlier this month the national insurance details of a further 15,000 people were lost on a CD-ROM. The Government then said:
	"we have reviewed our arrangements and introduced safeguards to prevent this happening again".
	I am grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for Banbury for bringing to my attention the case of Mr. Leaver, a constituent of his from Bicester. In July, Her Majesty's inspector of taxes sent two letters apparently intended for Buckinghamshire county council to his home address in Bicester. They contained the names and national insurance numbers of all the employees who had recently left that council. Mr. Leaver phoned Her Majesty's inspector of taxes and was told, "We are very grateful for your telling us this. We will correct the error." He has subsequently received five more letters. My hon. Friend raised this with HMRC, which confirmed that that was the case, and having looked into the matter, it said:
	"We did indeed hold an incorrect address for Buckinghamshire County Council."

Philip Hammond: In Oxfordshire.

George Osborne: In Oxfordshire, as my hon. Friend points out.
	When the Chancellor orders yet another review and issues yet another promise that something will not happen the public are not convinced. We want him to acknowledge what the head of the Institute of Chartered Accountants said last week: that the catastrophic loss of personal data was not a one-off, but
	"an example of wider operational and managerial malaise within HMRC".
	The institute has said that this gone on for most of 2007. Its head said that
	"there is a deterioration in service standards at HMRC. It manifests itself in things like postbags being unopened for weeks."

Fraser Kemp: Will the hon. Gentleman guarantee to the House that if he were to achieve the high office to which he aspires, there will be no loss of personal data under his watch?

George Osborne: What I can guarantee is that if I saw evidence of systemic failure in a department for which I was responsible to this House, I would look into that systemic failure and seek to correct it. There is no evidence that either this Chancellor or the previous one did that at all.

Si�n Simon: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

George Osborne: I shall give way to the hon. Gentleman because his question to the Chancellor last week again implied that this was all about the lowly official sitting at a computer. Presumably he was as astonished as I was to find that senior officials were involved in this decision.

Si�n Simon: The hon. Gentleman perhaps misheard or misunderstood the question put by my hon. Friend the Member for Houghton and Washington, East (Mr. Kemp). Given how smug and sanctimonious the hon. Gentleman is being, surely he could give a 100 per cent. guarantee that not one iota of data will be lost under any future Conservative Government in any circumstances. Will he give us a guarantee please?

George Osborne: First, I guarantee that I and anyone who serves in a Conservative Government will examine evidence of systemic failure. I think that I am pretty safe in guaranteeing that if I were Chancellor of the Exchequer, we would not lose the personal details of half the people in the country.

Kali Mountford: Is not the hon. Gentleman making a bold pledge? Would it not be more gracious for him to examine the records of previous Governments, including those of his party, and check how many times data have been lost by them, and to review the pledge that he has just been making?

George Osborne: I do not think that the hon. Lady can seriously point to an incident where any previous Government, Conservative or Labour, managed to lose 25 million people's names, addresses and national insurance numbers. This Government managed to lose the name, address and date of birth of every child in the country. As far back as 2002, the Prime Minister's performance and innovation unit talked about
	the lack of public trust in the way that the public sector handles personal information and the security of that information.
	Yet that warning and subsequent ones by the Information Commissioner and Select Committees of this House and the House of Lords have been ignored.
	The Chancellor will no doubt tell us about the fact that the chairman of PricewaterhouseCoopers has been asked to conduct yet another review of HMRC's security procedures. Will he confirm that we are still awaiting the results of the previous one? Does he remember something called the Crosby review? It was set up last year to explain how HMRC's tax credits system had been defrauded of 1.7 billion. Parliament was promised the report this summer, and I know that Labour Members were eagerly awaiting its arrival so that they could read it during their summer break. The Chief Secretary to the Treasury disappointed us, saying that it would arrive later in the summer, but we are now approaching December and there is still no sign of it.
	We have been told that plans are afoot in the Treasuryperhaps the Chancellor will confirm this [Interruption.] The answers come scurrying from the Government officials; at least this message did not get lost in the post. We have been told that plans are afoot in the Treasury to merge different HMRC databases into one single super database starting in April next year. Will the Chancellor confirm that, starting in April, everyone's tax records will be merged with everyone's benefit records? How can anyone be sure that such a super database containing the details of every person in the country will be any safer than the databases that it replaces?
	Has the time not come to consider whether HMRC should continue in its role as a benefits agency? I suspect that this issue might find sympathy with some Labour Members, because every MP knows that HMRC has proved itself incapable of administering tax credits effectively. It has now proved itself unable to administer child benefit competently. A tax-collecting department is not best suited to being a tax-spending department. This situation is a legacy of the previous Chancellor's obsessive desire to carve out for himself an empire in Whitehall. Now that the emperor has been shown to have no clothes, that empire should be dismantled. The administration of benefits should return to the Department for Work and Pensions where it belongs.
	Finally, the Chancellor must acknowledge the growing public concern about this Government's insatiable appetite for holding more and more personal data on their citizens. In a rare display of independent thought, he once said:
	Identity cards are unnecessary and will create more difficulties than they will solve...I do not want my whole life reduced to a magnetic strip on a plastic card. Those who advocate ID cards should think long and hard before continuing to do so.
	Surely an incident such as the loss of half the country's data would make him think long and hard.
	Now is the time to scrap the flawed plans for ID cards and a national identity register. Given that the Government have shown themselves to be completely incapable of looking after the data they already hold on us, how can they possibly ask for any more? I know that the Government increasingly look like a Monty Python sketch, but should they not take a leaf out of Monty Python's book and just say, ID cards are no more. They have ceased to be. They are an ex-project? The sooner the Government wake up to that fact and stop wasting our money on this doomed white elephant, the better.
	The Government have failed in their first dutyto protect the public. The Chancellor has presided over a Department that has lost the personal details of every child in the country, yet instead of an anxious public being kept informed, we have to wait for the Opposition to call him to Parliament to explain what is going on and why the version of events that he gave us last week is contradicted by the published evidence from the National Audit Office.
	Since he took office, this Chancellor has lurched from one disaster to anotherfrom the bank run, to the disastrous pre-Budget report, to the capital gains tax plans that seemed to change week by week. But the biggest disaster of all is surely this loss of the country's personal data. As someone once said, accident-prone Ministers are not accident-prone by accident. This Chancellor will never regain a reputation for competence; let us see if he can cling on to a reputation for being honest about his mistakes.

Alistair Darling: I beg to move, To leave out from House to the end of the Question, and to add instead thereof:
	approves of the decisive action taken by the Government when it became aware of the data loss by HM Revenue and Customs, including the collaborative work undertaken in association with the UK Payments Association, the British Bankers Association and the Building Societies Association and through them individual banks, building societies and other financial institutions which enabled them to put in place appropriate safeguards and monitor any irregular activity; welcomes the decision of the Chancellor of the Exchequer to initiate an urgent investigation by the Metropolitan Police and his appointment of Mr Kieran Poynter to conduct an independent review of HM Revenue and Customs' data handling procedures; acknowledges the steps which have already been taken to improve the department's data transfer processes; and notes the Chancellor's assurance that he will keep the House fully informed of further developments.
	This is a very serious matter, and I am sorry that the shadow Chancellor has chosen to make it an occasion for political knockabout.  [ Interruption. ] It is extremely serious when so many records go missing. There are no excuses for it, and yet again I reiterate not only my profound regret at what has happened but my apologies to the millions of people in this country who have been caused anxiety and distress. It is because I want to ensure that we not only find out exactly what happened but ensure that it never happens again that I appointed Kieran Poynter, the senior partner and chair of PricewaterhouseCoopers, to conduct an inquiry and report. I will come back to that shortly.

Graham Stuart: Will the Chancellor give way?

Alistair Darling: No, not just now.
	It is absolutely essential that we deal with the facts and the evidence, and we will have an interim report containing those in three weeks' time.
	Before I deal with the points made by the hon. Member for Tatton (Mr. Osborne), let me update the House on the current position. The Metropolitan police inquiry is continuing, as are searches. As this is a continuing police inquiry I do not want to say anything further on that, but the police inform me that they still have no evidence or intelligence that these data have fallen into the wrong hands and no evidence of fraud or criminal activity. The majority of accounts into which child benefit payments are made are with a small number of banks. The banks have now been able to check back to 18 October, and there are no reports, so I am told, of any activity suggesting increased fraud attempts deriving from this incident. However, Revenue and Customs will continue to ask for updates from major banks and building societies at least once a day.

Desmond Swayne: rose

Alistair Darling: Revenue and Customs also made changes to security processes and procedures for bulk data transfers, and such transfers will now take place only if they are absolutely necessary, written authorisation has been provided by senior Customs managers, and clear instruction has been given regarding the appropriate standard of protection for transfer.

Desmond Swayne: rose

Alistair Darling: As I said, Kieran Poynter, the chairman and senior partner of PricewaterhouseCoopers has started his inquiry, and I shall return to that shortly. [Hon. Members: Give way!] I shall certainly give way to the hon. Member for New Forest, West (Mr. Swayne), unless he has lost interest in the subject.

Desmond Swayne: Twenty-five million records of children's names and addresses have disappeared. Given the amount of data that the Government are collecting, no doubt including whether the children have been bad or good, and that it is six weeks before Christmas, it is blindingly obvious who has taken them.

Alistair Darling: I think that members of the public would hope that the House and the hon. Gentleman take this matter seriously. I am very sorry that he has chosen to strike that attitude.

Stephen Dorrell: On what evidence does the Chancellor base his statement that he does not believe that the discs have left Government property?

Alistair Darling: The information that I have comes from the police and from Revenue and Customs. As I said, the inquiry is continuing. When it has concluded and I have the interim report from Kieran Poynter, which I have asked to have by 14 December, I will report to the House thereafter.

Stephen Dorrell: rose

Graham Stuart: rose

John Redwood: rose

Alistair Darling: I want to make some progress.
	Let me deal with three matters that the shadow Chancellor raised before I turn to what he said about my statement and his other points. First, I said in my statement last week that we informed the banksthrough the Association for Payment Clearing Services, which acts for themon the Friday that we had this problem and needed their help. Work was carried on over the weekend to uplift the accounts so that they could be monitored. On the Monday morning, when I was reaching a decision about when I would report to the House, I asked what the banks' view was. A number of banks said that they wanted more time

Stephen Dorrell: Which banks?

Alistair Darling: I am not prepared to say that without those banks' consent, but their request was based on perfectly good operational requirements. Nobody is blaming the banks; they simply wanted the time to put in place the necessary protections. It was clear to me that, as I said last week, a balance had to be struck between my need to tell the House and the public and the need to ensure that the banks were properly prepared.
	The hon. Gentleman made a suggestion about dismantling something. I am not sure whether he is calling for the dismantling of Revenue and Customs or wants to transfer the benefits element out of it. The issue here, unless Kieran Poynter's inquiry points elsewhere, is not so much where the child benefit centre is located in terms of responsibilityof course, it was part of the Department for Work and Pensions and, before that, the Department of Social Securityas ensuring that there are robust procedures in relation to the handling of data and, crucially, that the procedures are followed to the last detail.
	In relation to identity cards, yes, I did indeed say what the hon. Gentleman said. However, as somebody once said, when the facts change, I change my mind. What has changed over the past few years is that a great deal of information is held about each and every one of us by Government Departments, by the private sector, and by the health service. The whole point of ID cards is to strengthen security so that we can be confident that information that is held on us, whether in the public sector or the private sector, is not released to third parties without our consent. That is the merit that ID cards can bring, and that is why I have changed my mind. Frankly, a lot has happened in the past 10 or 15 years in terms of the sheer quantity of information held.

Several hon. Members: rose

Alistair Darling: I give way to the right hon. Member for Wokingham (Mr. Redwood).

John Redwood: The Chancellor has already referred to one action that he has taken since this became news. What has he done in the past 18 days to change the systems in his Department?

Alistair Darling: I will come to that. I have already said that HMRC has changed its procedures for dealing with the bulk transfer of data. This is one of the reasons why I asked Kieran Poynter, coming as he does from a very large accountancy firm with a lot of experience in dealing with these sorts of problems, to make recommendations. As I said, it is important that we get the evidence and the facts so that we can learn from what has gone wrong and then proceed.

Several hon. Members: rose

Alistair Darling: I will give way to the right hon. Member for Fylde (Mr. Jack), and then I am going to make some progress.

Michael Jack: It is said that the request to remove the sensitive information from the lost discs was turned down on cost grounds. If that is correct, first, how much was the cost saving; and, secondly, how much will it cost to clear up the mess?

Alistair Darling: That, along with everything else, is part of the investigation being carried out by Kieran Poynter.
	I want to deal specifically with the central argument made by the shadow Chancellor. In my statement to the House on 20 November, I set out the facts and circumstances known to me in relation to the missing personal data. That statement was accurate in every respect in accordance with the information that I had then and have today. I specifically said in my statement that the House would understand that because the investigation was continuing, I was not yet in a position to give a full account of what had happened. I did, as the House would expect, set out the information I had available, including that the discs appear to have been provided to the NAO by a junior official in both the March and the October incidents. But I said in the same statement that Revenue and Customs as a department had failed to meet the high standards that should be expected of it in discharging its responsibility to the general public, who entrust it with highly sensitive personal information. I also referred to other data security breaches. Far from it being a one-off, I referred to those other breaches by Revenue and Customs, including the loss of records by an external courier and the loss of a laptop and other material in the very recent past.

George Osborne: The Chancellor said, when he spoke to us last week, that it was down to a junior official in the HMRC. The e-mails that were then released by the National Audit Office and the covering letter from the assistant auditor-general to the acting head of HMRC say that the HMRC process-owner for child benefitwhom I think the Chancellor would agree is a senior officialwas a copy recipient of the e-mail dated 13 March. Does he now accept that a senior official was copied into the decision-making process?

Alistair Darling: I am just coming to that, but before I leave that point, the hon. Gentleman made much of the factI think these were his wordsthat somehow it was implied that this was a one-off incident. I specifically said in my statement that there had been other data security breaches in the recent past, and I went on to say that I told the House that because of my concerns I had appointed Kieran Poynter to investigate Revenue and Customs security processes, and the procedures for data handling. As I said, I will have his interim report by 14 December, and I will report to the House thereafter before it rises for the Christmas recess.

John Hemming: Will the Chancellor give way?

Alistair Darling: Let me finish this point first.
	It will be an interim report and there will be a full report in the spring. I made it clear in my statement last week that we need to establish what happened and how it came about that two discs containing highly sensitive and personal information were provided to the NAO by Revenue and Customs in October. In that context, it is important to look at Kieran Poynter's published terms of reference because they make it very clear that I want a widespread investigation.
	His terms of reference are: to establish the circumstances that led to the significant loss of confidential personal data on child benefit recipients, other recent losses of confidential data and the lessons to be learned in the light of those circumstances; to examine HMRC practices and procedures in the handling and transfer of confidential data on taxpayers on benefit and credit recipients; the processes for ensuring that such procedures are communicated to staff and the safeguards in place to ensure that they are adhered to; the reasons those failed to prevent the loss of confidential data; and whether those procedures and processes are sufficient to ensure the confidentiality of personal data.

Several hon. Members: rose

Alistair Darling: Hold on.
	The terms of reference are deliberately widely drawn to allow every aspect of this matter to be looked at and to ensure that the lessons are learned at every level in Revenue and Customs.

Philip Dunne: In view of what the Chancellor said about the importance that the Government attach to the security of data transfer, will he confirm to the House that the data included on the two CDs were not encrypted, as the HMRC's press office statement said, which was reported on  Newsnight last week?

Alistair Darling: I said last week that the data were password-protected, but not encrypted. Most people agree that the data ought to have been encrypted, but they were not.

Patrick Hall: Will my right hon. Friend take it from me that the shadow Chancellor has lost a golden opportunity today? Does he agree that what the country looks for, when serious matters such as those we are debating today are considered, is a calm and measured response that addresses the issues for the long term in the interests of the country, and seeks to put them right? Instead, we got personal, cheap remarks with cruel humour and not one iota of constructive suggestion from the Opposition.

Alistair Darling: I agree with my hon. Friend that, as I said at the start, this is a serious matter, which means that we need to deal with it properly and comprehensively.

Several hon. Members: rose

Alistair Darling: I have been promising to give way to the hon. Member for Birmingham, Yardley (John Hemming) for some time.

John Hemming: Obviously, we recognise that one of the biggest problems in the release of the data was that they were not encrypted, but merely password-protected. Why, therefore, has the Department not said that while the review continues, any data discs should be sent out in an encrypted manner? Merely having a sign-off from a senior manager would not prevent exactly what has happened from happening again.

Alistair Darling: Part of the procedures that have been put in place, and which require the sign-off of a senior manager, ensures that if a large transfer of material were being made, encryption would be looked at. It may be that other things can be donematerial might be taken under suitable security and so on. All those things will be looked at.

John Hemming: rose

Alistair Darling: No, I will not give way again. The hon. Gentleman has made his point. It is a perfectly reasonable one, but it is one of the things that Kieran Poynter is looking at.

Several hon. Members: rose

Alistair Darling: I will not just give way just now.
	We will have the interim report in three weeks' time, and, as I said to the House last week, that will be alongside the police investigation, the independent police complaints investigation and the Information Commissioner's inquiry. The NAO is also conducting its own investigation.
	I want to deal with the shadow Chancellor's allegation about whether a senior HMRC official was involved in the earlier incident in March. As I said to the House, there were two incidentsthe October incident, which led to the loss of the material, and the March one, which equally should not have happened, but where the material was returned. The question was whether a senior HMRC official was involved in the decision to release information to the NAO in that earlier incident in March. The House will recall that the discs were returned safely, but when the e-mails the shadow Chancellor refers to were published, they were accompanied by a letter written by an assistant auditor-general at the NAO, and sent, as he said, to the acting chair of Revenue and Customs, dated 22 November.
	I want to read a paragraph from the letter. I think the hon. Gentleman has it, but it is rather important in relation to the allegation he made. The assistant-auditor general says in her letter:
	We met this morning and agreed that the HMRC Process Owner
	that is, the official in question
	for Child Benefit was a copy recipient of an e-mail dated 13 March 2007. The e-mail was sent by a junior HMRC
	official.
	It refers to a reluctance to provide data in the filtered form the NAO had requested. We also agreed that our own NAO audit director was aware of the position, and that we have no evidence that the Process Owner for Child Benefit made the decision to release the data.
	The hon. Gentleman left that bit of the letter out.

George Osborne: Will the Chancellor give way?

Alistair Darling: Not just now.
	The letter continues:
	The National Audit Office is not making an issue of any of this.
	There is no inconsistency between that and what I said last week.

George Osborne: Will the Chancellor give way?

Alistair Darling: In a moment.
	There is no inconsistency between what I said in my statement last week and the information publicly available. Crucially, exactly what happened in the chain between the time that information was requested and the discs were handed over is to be investigated by Kieran Poynter and the National Audit Office, which is carrying out its own inquiry. They will examine the evidence, establish the facts and make recommendations.

George Osborne: The Chancellor did not accurately read that letter. He read the sentence, The e-mail was sent out by a junior HMRC official, which is what he told the House of Commons. The sentence actually says:
	The e-mail was sent by a junior HMRC manager
	that is, management in the senior levels of the department. [Hon. Members: A junior manager] It was indeed a junior manager, but that still makes him a senior official. He makes the point [ Interruption. ]

Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. These are extremely serious matters and all our constituents would expect us to deal with them seriously.

George Osborne: Indeed, 96 per cent. of people employed in the department are more junior than the person whom we are discussing. Perhaps the Chancellor could correct the record about the letter. Will he explain why someone, who is presumably close to him, told the BBC's political editor that
	when he spoke to the Commons the Chancellor had not seen the e-mails and had not been told of the potential involvement of a senior official?

Alistair Darling: The letter does say junior HMRC manager, but I note that the hon. Gentleman did not comment on the fact that it also states:
	We have no evidence that the process owner for child benefit
	the senior manager whom we are discussing
	made the decision to release the data.
	In other words, that evidence is not available to us.
	The key point is that I have asked Kieran Poynter to examine all the evidence to establish what happened. As I said in my statement last week, I did not have all the information; I was able to make an interim report at that time, but further information was needed. It is precisely because of the need for full and further information; that I have asked Mr. Poynter to report. When he reports by 14 December, I will return to the House and make an oral statement before the House rises for the Christmas recess.
	The incident is serious. Again, I apologise unreservedly to the public. The Department has clearly failed in the high standards that the public rightly expect. That is why I asked for a thorough inquiry. The lessons need to be learned so that we make sure that it does not happen again.

Vincent Cable: I support the Opposition motion, although it is rather narrowly couched. The hon. Member for Tatton (Mr. Osborne) broadened it a little to refer to ID cards, but there are much broader questions than those posed by the motion. None the less, I agree with it.
	We all accept that the starting point is the potential through the loss of the CDs for damage which has not yet been fully realised. Among those who come to me as a local Member of Parliament to express anxiety are people who are desperately worried that information about their identity and location will be leaked to their partners or former partners from whom they have separated. In some fraught relationships, identity is crucial, and all that information could now be lost.
	We sincerely hope that the discs will not fall into the hands of the criminal fraternity. However, I understand that one identity on the black market is worth approximately 60. We are therefore considering a stock of criminal value of around 1.5 billion, which makes the Brinks Mat robbery the equivalent of stealing the church collection. An enormous amount remains at stake.
	I shall tackle the broader questions, but I should like first to deal with the specific, basic question that the hon. Member for Ludlow (Mr. Dunne) and my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Yardley (John Hemming), who is an encryption specialist, asked about why encryption has not routinely taken place. I understand that that was not a simple oversight and that almost all the data that have been lost and all those that have been shipped around in government are not encrypted. Encryption is simply not happening. What are the reasons for that? My understanding, from talking to some of the specialists involved, is that IT specialists, mostly freelancers, are needed to encrypt data. The big IT companies are not interested in using them and the civil servants who oversee them do not understand the problem, so encryption is not happening. Can the Poynter inquiry probe that further in relation not only to the Treasury but departments in general?
	A second set of questions relates to transporting the discs. We now know, as a result of the information that has been released in the past few days, that not only the Standard Life discs and the two CDs went astray. Apparently, two more CDs that contained confidential information were lost in transit from Preston to Whitehall. Yesterday, I believe that discs that contained Scottish Government confidential information went astray in Scotland. Why is transport handled in such a way? In the years I spent in the diplomatic service we had something called the diplomatic bag, which may have been overrated but existed specifically to handle confidential data. Of course, transporting data across borders involves somewhat different considerations. None the less, there was a recognition that confidential data need to be handled confidentially and carefully, and that a dedicated institution was merited. Yet that concept appears to exist nowhere in government. I wonder whether the Poynter inquiry will argue that simply contracting out less stuff to courier companies is the best way in which to handle the information.

Stewart Hosie: The hon. Gentleman has considered encryption and the procedures for transit. Is not a more fundamental point that someone in the department was able to copy the data, without a technical intervention from a senior manager?

Vincent Cable: The hon. Gentleman is right and access was my next point. I asked that question of the chairman of a leading plc, who thought that it was unbelievable that a junior employee in his company could have access to all the company's commercial and technical secrets. He said that there would be an elaborate and difficult process to ensure that people going into the database and getting out again were properly screened. That appears to exist nowhere in government. Again, we need to establish why.

Chris Mole: On what basis does the hon. Gentleman think that?

Vincent Cable: I am simply asking questions [Interruption.]

Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. If hon. Members want to intervene, they must do so in the normal way, not from a sedentary position.

Vincent Cable: My question on the specifics of the leakage relate to why the information was transmitted through CDs. I am not a specialist, but I understand that super-computers nowadays transmit data electronically and instantaneously and that receipt can be confirmed instantaneously. Why is a rather antiquated system, in computer terms, employed for the major transmission of data? That is a simple, factual question about which the inquiry will doubtless enlighten us.
	There are broader questions. Clearly, the Chancellor is responsible for his Department and his agency. It is proper that he responds to questions about that. However, every question that we ask the Chancellor could equally be posed to every other Secretary of State in Departments that have agencies handling data. Is the Chancellor aware of any other Departments that are involved in the same sort of transmission of data as that in which his Department is engaged? The same thing could clearly happen with the Department for Work and Pensions and with highly sensitive data in the Home Office and its agencies. Are the Government as a whole considering database management and security? Surely that is the crucial question.

Robert Wilson: I was contacted yesterday by a constituent, Mr. David Kauders, who told me that when trying to renew his car tax disc he found that he was inputting his credit card details into an insecure website. Does the hon. Gentleman agree that the Chancellor should look into that immediately and, if my constituent is found to be correct, warn people that their credit and debit cards are at risk?

Vincent Cable: I am not sufficiently informed of the structure of Government to know whether the Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency comes under the Chancellor. However, clearly a Department should check that out.
	The broader issue is how IT systems in Governmentnot only in HMRC and the Treasuryare managed. What role does security play in the objectives of massive IT programmes? Of course, many work perfectly well, but IT systems exist to provide convenience, cost reduction and security. How much is security weighted in the current management of the systems? The hon. Member for South Norfolk (Mr. Bacon) among others has persistently asked about the way in which Members of Parliament gain access to the Government's evaluations of their IT programmes in HMRC and elsewhere. There is an issue about the so-called gateway reviewsthe way in which IT programmes are judged and evaluated. My understanding is that we are not allowed access to them. The Public Accounts Committee, too, is not allowed access to them. Perhaps the Chancellor will confirm whether he, like his predecessor, is determined to go to court to block public or parliamentary access to the gateway review on HMRC. Is that the case?

John Redwood: Does the hon. Gentleman suggest that the resignation of the head of HMRC is not sufficient and that accountability for the problems rests with Ministers?

Vincent Cable: It does ultimately rest with Ministers, although I am not calling for the resignation of the Chancellor. We obviously need to find out a great deal more, but accountability indeed goes higher. The point that I made in response to the original statement was that in Departments such as the Home Office that principle has been accepted.

Graham Stuart: There is obviously culpability at ministerial level, and not only for incompetence. Does the hon. Gentleman have questions about the way in which the episode was eventually announced in the House and the so-called junior official was forced into flight, holed up in a hotel in secret and hung out to dry, just as the Government have hung other public officials out to dry when seeking to save themselves rather than the public interest?

Vincent Cable: I am not quite sure what else could have been done with that junior official to protect him from the media. I am not critical of how the Chancellor handled the issue in the House. It seems to have been dealt with promptly and properly, as far as it went, so that is not my line of criticism.
	I should like to move on to the issue of cost cutting. The hon. Member for Tatton quite properly raised the particular e-mail in the batch that we received. Perhaps I should read out one sentence from the communication, to explain where the problem lies:
	I must stress we must make use of the data we hold and not over burden the business by asking them to run additional scans/filters that may incur a cost to the department.
	Obviously cost-consciousness is important, and I do not criticise civil servants for being conscious of cost. However, in this casethe right hon. Member for Fylde (Mr. Jack) put this question perfectly wellwhat is the cost of doing a basic test, with the stripping out of sensitive data? I gather from people in the profession that it probably costs a freelance consultant something in the order of 10,000 to do a job of that kind. Other estimates might be available, but that is in the context of budgets of 8.5 billion, which is the value of the Capgemini contract. Who is making an assessment of the costs and benefits of particular choices? Who is assessing proportionality?
	That links in with the issue of staffing and staff cuts in the department. Again, I have no fundamental objections in principle to trying to raise the efficiency levels of HMRC and Departments. No public servant has a job for life. However, I have always been critical not so much of the principles behind the Gershon savings, but of how they operate through crude head-counts, which anyone who has worked in a large company will know are the most inefficient way of trying to increase efficiency. They often result in the wrong people being evicted, staff being demoralised and a lack of supervision. That has undoubtedly been a factor in the operation of HMRC and not only lies behind the tax credit fiasco, but probably plays a part in this situation.
	The fundamental issue that I wish to raisethis relates to why I think the Opposition motion is too narrowis the danger, which has now been highlighted, of big centralised databases. The hon. Member for Tatton is right that one of the major lessons from this episode concerns the problems that could arise from the ID card system. However, the underlying issue is that we have big centralised data systems, with large numbers of people who have access to them, so any mistake is compounded on a large scale. Quite apart from whether we get to the ID cards system, there are big Government central databases about which important questions now need to be asked.
	For example, there is a new child protection database system called ContactPoint, which was created in the wake of the Climbi inquiry. As I understand itI stand to be correctedin the order of 300,000 professionals could have access to that database. It is difficult not to imagine that at least a few of them might have some malign intention. The problem lies in the sheer scale of the database to which they have access, however well managed it is and however good the protocols.

Nick Palmer: The hon. Gentleman is making a serious speech, to which we are all listening attentively. Does he not agree that the key issue for IT access is which data fields can be accessed, rather than whether they are grouped in one or several databases? In the case of the child database to which he has referred, the key question is how many people can access the address or contact details of a child, rather than whether a certain number of people can access the database at all.

Vincent Cable: The hon. Gentleman has an advantage over me, given his technical knowledge. However, my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Yardley, who I suspect has even more technical knowledge, has suggested that the fundamental problem is not the number of fields but the number of records and the sheer scale of the databases.
	That issue arises not only in relation to ContactPoint. There is also the looming issue of the NHS spine, containing highly sensitive medical data to which well over 300,000 people will have access. I am told that some journalists are willing to pay 10,000 or something of that order for access to the medical records of a celebrity. The temptation for somebody to use and abuse the database in that way is obvious. Although there are disadvantages to a fragmented system in which GPs have their own records on paper, it is significantly better for security.

Kali Mountford: I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for giving way, because I wanted to raise similar issues in my speech, which can now be shortened. Is not the problem that whatever system we introduce and however perfect we try to make it any system can be made open to abuse by people who want to get information to which they should not be allowed access?

Vincent Cable: The hon. Lady is absolutely right. However, although it is easy to be wise after the event, my point is that one of the lessons that we should learn from this episode is that big is not necessarily beautiful and that there is advantage in a small scale. That may well result in reduced efficiency, but when we are concerned about massive data loss and security, there is an argument for smallness. We should start to adopt that approach for some sensitive database systems.

Julia Goldsworthy: Does my hon. Friend also agree that there is an issue with responsibility for error? I recently became aware of a Child Support Agency case, where the contact details of an individual were wrong, which was causing problems in processing payments. However, the Child Support Agency said that since it was not the only organisation that could have changed those details, it could not be deemed responsible for the problem.

Vincent Cable: Indeed. It is a question not just of the size of databases but of the whole system and the interconnection between them, with the risks multiplying many times over.
	My next point relates to what this sorry episode suggests to us about data protection legislation. The subject arouses great annoyance in many quarters, and I believe that the Conservatives have suggested that they will repeal the data protection legislation. There is an appalling contrast between how individuals encounter the workings of the Data Protection Act 1998, which are about form filling and obstruction, and what members of the public see in the conduct of government, which is inefficiency and leakage. That lack of balance and accountability is at the heart of a great deal of disillusionment. In the light of that, I wonder whether we should return to the 1998 Act and introduce some new principles, one of which is that individuals should have access to the data that the Government hold on them and the right to correct that data.
	Another principle that stems directly from the current affair is that where data managers have committed serious errors or been negligent they should be open to some penalty. Apparently no penalty currently exists. It might have been a bit of a joke that the Metropolitan police were fined several hundred thousand pounds for the shooting of de Menezes, but the data managers in HMRC face no penalties whatever under existing legislation. Surely that should be addressed.

Chris Mole: The inappropriateness of the contrast between what has happened in this case and ID card legislation is that there are penalties in the Identity Cards Act 2006 for unlawful access to the ID cards database. Perhaps we should consider a specific penalty for unlawful access to Government data across the piece, measured on a data-by-data basis.

Vincent Cable: That seems a sensible suggestion on the assumption that that actually happens.
	My final point is that although the purpose of today's Opposition day motion is to hold the Chancellor to account on matters relating to a serious breach of privacy and data, it highlights the fact that we have no regular mechanism of doing so in the House. One of the purposes of reforming the 1998 Act could be to ensure that we have a proper ongoing Select Committee system concerning privacy and data, perhaps involving both Houses of Parliament, so that it is not necessary to have these occasional and highly politicised attempts to deal with issues that should be dealt with in the House systematically.

Kali Mountford: Thank you for calling me so early in the debate, Mr. Deputy Speaker. I apologise to the House for having other business that will call me away, but I shall endeavour to return as quickly as possible, as this is an important debate and I want to be a part of as much of it as I can. I want to distil the important issues on which we need to focus from among those that the Opposition are tempted to dwell on and have fun with, which simply create hot air and bring little more to the debate than a few headlines and some enjoyment for those who like to see people squirm.
	When people make mistakes, the first thing that they should do is to apologise. I congratulate my right hon. Friend the Chancellor on doing that immediately; it was the right thing to do. When we make mistakes, we should also do our best to put things right. In order to do that, we need to know what went wrong. My right hon. Friend is right to say that, when there has been a catalogue of mistakeswe cannot pretend that that is not the casewe need to know what lies behind it.
	Holding the inquiry is exactly the right thing to do. To say that we had some data first in one place and then in another, and that we do not know exactly where some discs are, and to pretend that we know what happened during that series of events and not to hold an inquiry would be quite ludicrous. I congratulate my right hon. Friend on immediately instigating the inquiry. It was the right thing to do.
	We need to look to our laurels and find out what went wrong. We also need to determine whose responsibility it was. This certainly cannot be laid at the door of junior officials. I always think that it is quite wrong for politicians ever to lay the blame at the door of officials.

Graham Stuart: I wonder whether that is a subtle chastisement of the Prime Minister and the Chancellor of the Exchequer, both of whom explicitly used the term junior official, which would have been entirely unnecessary if they were not trying to suggest where the responsibility lay.

Kali Mountford: Absolutely not at all. That is a gross misunderstanding of what was being said. If someone has taken an action, as that junior official clearly did, it is one thing to understand that action, but to blame that person for it is quite another

Graham Stuart: He is in hiding.

Kali Mountford: The hon. Gentleman needs to wait for the inquiry. Why did that junior official take that action when, in the light of the procedures that should have been followed, it clearly should not have been taken?

Graham Stuart: rose

Kali Mountford: The hon. Gentleman must calm down, stay in his seat and think about what I am trying to say. There is a set of procedures; why were they not followed? If there are pressures in the department, why did that person not follow the procedures? Which level of senior managers did not ensure that those procedures were properly followed? What breakdown took place that resulted in those procedures not being followedif, indeed, that is the case? In future, what new, easier-to-follow procedures shall we need to put in place to ensure that this kind of thing cannot happen again?

Fraser Kemp: Does my hon. Friend agree that the loss of data should not reflect on the vast majority of staff who work at Waterside Park and who do a good job? Many MPs here will struggle to remember the last time that they had a complaint about the delivery of child benefit; it is an efficient benefit that has delivered to millions of families and helped to alleviate child poverty in this nation.

Kali Mountford: My hon. Friend brings me to my next point. As a former civil servant, and as a former member of the CPSA union who represented members of the department that he has mentioned, I can tell the House that they are grand people. To suggest that they could be in any way accountable for this mistake would be wrong. The Government have made decisions to increase the level of child benefit and to ensure that people rightly get the money that they deserve, but many of them would not get it on time without those people who live and work in my hon. Friend's constituency making sure that that can happen. It is right to acknowledge the work that they do

Graham Stuart: rose

Kali Mountford: Oh, he is at it again. I shall let him have a go.

Graham Stuart: There are so many questions that have not been answered by the Chancellor because there is going to be an inquiry, yet the Chancellor and the Prime Minister both managed to divulge one fact very early. It turned outallegedly, and perhaps not entirely correctlyto have been a junior official who had released the data. May I suggest that that revelation was entirely unnecessary? The fact that that person has been hounded out and has been in hiding is a disgrace and a shame for the Government.

Kali Mountford: Oh dear, oh dear, oh dear. The hon. Gentleman really does need to stay in his place, stay calm and not get so excited. Would he rather that that person were flogged and hanged by hon. Members in the street [ Interruption. ] Would he rather that that person were hounded by the press and not protected? I see this rather differently. I would rather that that person were kept away from the press so that they were not hounded every day, but the hon. Gentleman sees this rather differently. I see this as a way of protecting the person. The hon. Gentleman will have it his way; I will have it mine. It is better that we get to the facts, then look at what we need to do in the future. That is what the inquiry is about.
	We have heard today that this matter has reached another stage. I anticipated that this would happen, but I regret that two other questions have, quite spuriously and wrongly, been thrown into the debate: what should we do about the department, and what should we do about ID cards? They are both wrong, but let us look at the matter. The department is the right way to go. I know that some of my hon. Friends might agree with the Opposition, but I disagree with them.
	The way in which the system has been set up ensures that people who need tax credits can have them, and it is thanks to the constituents of my hon. Friend the Member for Houghton and Washington, East (Mr. Kemp) that most people have now got the benefits that they deserve. It would be wrong to jiggery-poker about with a new department yet again. It would still have the same computer system, and it would still have the same employees. To pretend that it would be a completely different system would be to do a disservice to the public, and it would be wrong to try to reinvent the wheel. That is what Opposition Members want to do, but it would be a mistake and a diversion. It would be misleading, and it is not the right thing to focus on.
	The Opposition's suggestions about ID cards would result in our throwing the baby out with the bathwater. ID cards are a separate issue. Everyone always forgets that our biometrics stay with us continually. We would not have to carry cards; that is a separate issue. We cannot leave home without our biometrics; they are with us always. To say that, because of this one mistake [ Interruption. ] It is a huge mistake; I do not take issue with that fact. But however big it is, and wherever those discs are, my biometrics are with me now, and no one can take them off me. Wherever I go, they are with me. I could go into a bank and put my fingerprint down, but it would not be on that database because it would be separate from my biographical details.

Stewart Hosie: The hon. Lady is making a valiant case, but she seems to be suggesting that any transaction that she wishes to carry out will require her to be scanned and checked against a central repository. I am sure that that contradicts the answer that we got from a Minister some time ago. From memory, I think that we were told that it would be up to each organisation to determine how the system was used. Is the hon. Lady really suggesting that every single transaction would be checked against a central repository?

Kali Mountford: I obviously did not say that, but Opposition Members have been implying that this mistake means the end of ID cards. I was simply suggesting that an added protection for us, in having an ID register, is the fact that it contains our biometrics. It is there in the proposed legislation that, if organisations want to use our biometrics, that additional safeguard is there for us. I think that it is an additional safeguard that many people would want to have.

Chris Mole: My hon. Friend is doing an excellent job of making the case that the Opposition have mis-juxtaposed the issue of ID cards with this issue. If we had ID cards, with the security that she is describing, the concerns about the loss of data would be nowhere near the same. Ordinary members of the public would know, for example, that if their bank had implemented that level of security using a biometric, the loss of basic data would not put them at the risk that they are now concerned about.

Kali Mountford: My hon. Friend makes the case even better than I could. That is precisely my point and Opposition Members do a disservice by trying to link the two, which is a mistake. Clearly, losing the discs was a mistake, but people need not be concerned that their loss could have led to a connection being established between their bank accounts and ID cardsif those cards were in place. The two need not be linked, so it is a mistake to talk about the death of ID cards. I certainly continue to support them and I know that my constituents also continue to support the ID card concept. As I say, it is a mistake to think that this issue means the end of them. I also think that it is a mistake to continue to parrot the idea that our data is out there in the country. I still believe that by the end of the inquiry we will have discovered that the data is safely stored somewhere in the system. I certainly hope so. Let us wait until the end of the inquiry before we start speculating about what has really happened.

Stephen Dorrell: I think everyone in the House agrees that if confidential data about 25 million cases go missing, it amounts to a very serious event and it is absolutely right for my Front-Bench colleagues regularly to draw the Government to account for the system failure that led to it. I also strongly agree with the hon. Member for Twickenham (Dr. Cable) that this is not just a debate about a serious problem that emerged when the data went missing, as it should also be about something much more deep seated that has been revealed by the eventnamely, what I regard as the lack of seriousness of the Government's response to it.
	It is quite telling that so much of the debate and so much of the Government's response has been a virtually technical discussion about whether the data was encrypted, whether the CDs were password protected, whether they are still on Government premises, whether the banks delayed and other issues of process. There has been what I regard as depressingly little focus on the huge issue of principle that underlies the whole debate.
	We should all recognise that the information held about each one of us by Her Majesty's Revenue and Customs is immensely sensitive and should be regarded by it as having the highest degree of security. That was true in the days before information technology and before it became relatively easy for that information to be passed around the system. The whole structure of data protection that has developed since information has been typically handled through IT has merely reinforced a commitment to privacy, which has always been part of the tradition on the Inland Revenue side of HMRC and should be absolutely in the DNA of a tax-gathering organisation. It has always been part of the proud culture of our tax-gathering institutions that we cannot read in this country's newspapers information about the tax affairs of private citizens, which happens more regularly elsewhere. My biggest concern as a result of this event is the sense that that proud tradition of security in the tax-gathering organisations is being put at risk. Why is it being put at risk? I think that it is because at exactly the same time as the risk of this material being easily disseminated as a result of the development of modern IT, there is less and less respect for this country's traditional defences surrounding the principle of privacy. Let me enlarge a little on that point.
	We are talking about data held by HMRC, to which the National Audit Office wanted access in order to do its job of ensuring a proper audit trail and proper control on the use of Government money. Nobody would disagree with that. What we have not heard in this public debate is any evidence that anyone has asked this question: the NAO wanted this information, so what information should have been provided to it? There has been a debate about whether it should have gone on CDs or should have been encrypted, but not about whether the information should have been provided to the NAO at all and, if so, which level of information. There was a discussion and a decision was takenwe believe, but we do not knowby a relatively junior official or junior manager. Let us not enter that debate, but a decision was taken at a relatively junior level that information should be provided by HMRC to the NAO in a more generous form than the NAO was asking for and purely on cost grounds. Nowhere in the debate can be seen what I would have hoped fora sense within HMRC that this is highly confidential information, protected by law and in respect of which HMRC has the role of trustee on behalf of the taxpayer or benefit recipient, which should not be provided to anyone else, including the NAO, unless very clear reason is given within statute.

John Hemming: On that point, does the right hon. Gentleman agree that one alternative would have been for HMRC to say that it would not send a copy of its database to the NAO, but it would allow its experts and auditors to come to HMRC in order to audit the information?

Stephen Dorrell: I agree with the hon. Gentleman that ifit is a very big ifthere were good reason for the NAO to see the information, the obvious way to do it would have been for the NAO to get on the train and travel to see it in the place where it was kept. If I may say so, that still omits what I consider to be the key issue at stake here, which is whether the NAO needed to see the information in the form provided. Since the NAO itself did not even ask for the information in the form provided, it amounts to a catastrophic failure not of system, but of culture, within the tax-gathering organisations. That is the theme that I want to focus on.
	This will save us 5,000, 10,000 or 20,000, so we will send them a disc because it is convenient. No, sir. This is information in respect of which HMRC is trustee, so it should have a deep-seated culture in the very DNA of the organisation particularly in the days of modern ITthat such information is its own for its own purpose and should not be made available to anyone else, including the NAO. The NAO, of course, has a job to do and must be able to do it, but that poses a question: how much information does it need and can it be provided in anonymised form or in a form capable of protecting the privacy of the individual? Yet none of those questions appeared even to have occurred to people in HMRC, much less properly considered, as they should have been, at a senior level within the organisation.
	The failure revealed by those events is not a failure in respect of who has got the password or the technical defences of the information; it is a failure of culture at the very heart of government. What concerns me most is that the responsible Ministers do not appear to have recognised that this is not a failure of authority levels and technical trip words; they have not seen that it is a failure of culture, which goes much more to the heart of government. It is exactly the same issue highlighted during the inquiry into how we got drawn into the situation in Iraq, when the sofa style of government came in for so much criticism. It is the train of thought at the heart of the government that sees process as a bore and believes that men of good will do not have to go through legal processes or have a proper audit trail because we can somehow find our way quickly to the right solution because we are doing it all for the best of all possible motives. Once again, no, sir.
	We fought a civil war to establish the principle that we live in a society based on law, and thatmost important of allwithin that society based on law, law binds Government. What I see in this whole sorry story is yet another illustration of the fact that the Government do not have a proper understanding of the importance of the principle that a society of laws must start at the top, and the culture at the top of government must respect the fact that it is bound by law and must act only within it.
	When someone from the National Audit Office asked for this information, the instinct should not have been to say As we are all working for the same Government, let us be helpful. The instinct should have been first to say No, you cannot have it, and secondly to say Why do you want it?not in order to be difficult or to obstruct, but because that is how people behave when they live in a society based on law and not on discretion.

Rob Marris: What a pleasure it is to follow a rather unfortunate speech, if I may say so, from the right hon. Member for Charnwood (Mr. Dorrell). I say unfortunate because although it was an extremely good speech that touched on some key issues, it was the sort of speech that should have been delivered by someone on the right hon. Gentleman's Front Bench, and it rather showed up the threadbare nature of his Front Bench by looking at the bigger picture.
	The debate arises
	as a result of this extremely serious failure on the part of HMRC to protect sensitive personal data entrusted to it in breach of its own guidelines.[ Official Report, 20 November 2007; Vol. 467, c. 1102.]
	Those are the words used by my right hon. Friend the Chancellor in his statement last week, and I have to say, in a partisan way but trying to be dispassionate, that I rather prefer his approach to that of his opposite number the shadow Chancellor. I thought that the Chancellor spoke in a rather measured, considered, calm way, whereas the hon. Member for Tatton (Mr. Osborne) did not do himself justice. He tended far too much towards the bluster and rhetoric end of the spectrum.
	The hon. Gentleman and his colleagues were, rightly I think, attacked by the Chancellor for trying to score cheap political points. I, as politician, do not have a problem with someone who is trying to score political points, and nor in my view should any politician; but trying to score cheap political points on the back of 25 million people's records going missing is not helpful. Let me give an example of what I regard as a cheap political point made by the Opposition. Following at least two interventions from my hon. Friends, the hon. Member for Blaby (Mr. Robathan) repeatedly said from a sedentary position Tory gain. I consider that to be the sort of cheap political point that does not help the debate at all.
	I much prefer the amendment tabled by my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister on behalf of the Government to the substantive motion tabled by the Opposition. While I think it important and helpful to have this debatealthough I also think it is happening at a rather early stage in the unfolding of eventsthe amendment seems to me much more forward-looking and constructive than the Opposition motion, which strikes me as rather negative and, in fact, not at all constructive. That is not to say that it is completely without merit. It does draw attention to the fact that 25 million citizens' records went missing, and notes that that represents a
	failure to protect the personal details
	of those citizens, which is absolutely right. The Chancellor of the Exchequer has apologised for that, and so has the Prime Minister.
	Apologies in themselves, of course, are not enough, although they are important in almost any walk of life in terms of basic human decency and politeness. When we have a huge problem, however, as we do with the missing discs, I think that many people outside the House would say There is a problem within Her Majesty's Revenue and Customs. Whom would I prefer to have on my side trying to sort it out? It has been acknowledged throughout the House that it is a huge problemnearly half the citizens of our country are involvedbut although those people might well conclude that they would rather have the right hon. Member for Charnwood on their side than those on his Front Bench, I think that many of them would prefer to have the Chancellor of the Exchequer and the Prime Minister on their side trying to sort out acknowledged problems.

John Hemming: The hon. Gentleman expressed support for the Government amendment, which refers to action taken by the Government. Does he not share my concern about the fact that the Government are not requiring every single disc sent out by HMRC from now on to be encrypted? At present, the only real difference is that a more senior person will have to sign off the loss of 25 million records.

Rob Marris: I think we should be a little careful about adopting that approach. Kieran Poynter is conducting a review whose interim recommendations are due to be delivered by 14 December. The hon. Gentleman has considerable experience in computer matters and I understand his request, or demand, for encryption, but I think that such a step would be too much in the traditionon occasion, the Government have been rightly criticised for thisof setting up reviews and then failing to wait for their outcome before acting.

John Hemming: rose

Rob Marris: If the hon. Gentleman will forgive me, I shall carry on for a bit. He raised the question of encryption. Today is 28 November, so 14 December is 16 days away. As far as I know, the absence of the Kieran Poynter recommendations and the Government's response to them would not prevent any Government Department or agency wishing to encrypt from doing so straight away, and I would be surprised if that was not being done. Perhaps it is not. Perhaps the hon. Gentleman can tell us.

John Hemming: The Chancellor said that there was no requirement for encryption. So one more horse could bolt through the stable door that has not been closed before the review produces its interim recommendations.

Rob Marris: The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right, but for the moment I would prefer to wait for the Poynter review.

Stewart Hosie: I have a problem with the Government amendment. It asks us to support
	the steps which have already been taken to improve the department's data transfer processes,
	but does not mention improving data access and copying processes. How can we support a proposal that makes no mention of security tokens, algorithm-based one-time passwords, USB cards, PINs or any of the other technical interventions that are required to stop the problem? All that we have are vague guidelines that have been breached at least three times in the past year in this Department alone.

Rob Marris: I am grateful for what the hon. Gentleman has said, because it brings me conveniently to the next part of my speech, which concerns the relationship between Ministers, Government Departments and Government agencies. Let me quote again from the Chancellor's statement last week:
	In terms of protecting confidential data, Her Majesty's Revenue and Customs is operationally independent of Ministers. It is established by statute and run by its chairman, Paul Gray, and a board of commissioners who are responsible for its operations.[ Official Report, 20 November 2007; Vol. 467, c. 1102.]
	What is difficult for all politicians to deal with is how operationally independent agencies and staff are within Departments.

Stewart Hosie: As I do not have a copy of  Hansard with me, I speak from memory, but did that paragraph not end with the Chancellor's saying that the responsibility stopped with him?

Rob Marris: Overall the Chancellor of the Exchequer is responsible for the Treasury, and Her Majesty's Revenue and Customs is an agency of the Treasury. The hon. Gentleman goes on about the technical ways in which the problem might be dealt withlogarithms, encryption and so forthand such suggestions are helpful in the House of Commons, but I think that as politicians we should beware the temptation to micro-manage. The official Opposition consistently make allegations about the Prime Minister's being a control freak, but when it comes to a terrible experience such as this, there seem to be calls from some parts of the House for micro-management.
	Unlike some hon. Members on both sides of the House, I have done my own small bit before coming here, aged 46, in running organisations. I helped to run a small business in the shoe sector and was a partner in a law firm that had a turnover of approximately 30 million a year; it was not a huge organisation, and not a tiny one. Before anyone asks, let me declare an interest, inasmuch as I am a non-practising solicitor with the organisation Thompsons, in which I was a partner giving money, as declared in the register, to my constituency Labour party. I do not want any misunderstandings about that. I was a partner there for a number of years, so I have some experiencenot a huge amountof helping to run organisations.
	If one is going to run a successful political, commercial or public sector organisationI have no management training, along with the majority of Members, I suspectone is constantly urged to delegate. When one delegates, one runs the risk that those to whom one has delegated a task will mess it up. That is in the nature of delegation, which is why so many people find it so hard to delegate; they cannot tolerate the thought of a foul-up.
	When one has delegated, one has a responsibility to monitor the actions and sometimes inactions of those to whom one has delegated. When one finds that the person to whom tasks have been delegated has either failed to carry them out or has carried them out incorrectly, one should take decisive action to address those faults when they are discovered. One should of course have a process to monitor things so that one proactively discovers faults.
	That broadly seems to me the position of our Chancellor of the Exchequer. There were faults in HMRC, as acknowledged by the Chancellor in the House on 20 November, in statements to the media since and certainly here today. That has also been acknowledged by Paul Gray, who was the chair of trustees of HMRC and who immediately fell on his sword when it became apparent that there had been problems in the organisation. Pick holes as the Opposition mightso they should; that is the role of an Opposition in a parliamentary democracy, which we are pleased to enjoyone must ask whether decisive action has been taken. I think it has. Is the organisation aware of the problem and how it happened? It is quite clear from what has been said, particularly by the Chancellor, that the overall organisation, as it were, is aware of how this happened. The leadership within HMRC and, on the political level, within the Treasury as exemplified by the Chancellor has a plan that commands some support as to what to do to address the problems with which the organisation is faced.
	The Chancellor and his team tick all the boxes on that, to use our modern jargon. They have perceived the problemproblems can be hidden in organisations for years, as we all knowtaken decisive action and come to a preliminary view, which will be assisted by Kieran Poynter's report as to how it came about. They have also come to a preliminary view, again to be assisted by the report, on where we go from here and what we do to prevent a reoccurrence.

John Mann: My hon. Friend is using his previous professional expertise to persuasive effect. I always think that lawyers speaking on issues other than the vested interests of lawyers bring strength to this House. Logically, is there not an additional aspect that needs to be brought into the equationthe role of Parliament? Parliament appoints Select Committees, including the Treasury Committee, which is chaired by a Government Member, and its Sub-Committee, chaired by an Opposition Member, with a precise remit to look at exactly the same issues. The Treasury Sub-Committee, on which I once servedI take as much responsibility as any other Memberlooks at the precise workings of this particular agency of Government.

Rob Marris: In this case, flattery will get my hon. Friend everywhere. I broadly agree and he is right about Select Committees and Sub-Committees. He will recall that I said that the Opposition were picking holes and were right to do so, in that that is what Oppositions should be doing in a parliamentary democracy.

Fraser Kemp: I very much agree with my hon. Friend's call for a rational debate. Does he agree that some of the derogatory press comments about the town of Washington do not contribute to that rational debate? Those comments include some suggesting that the town is full of run-down high-rise tower blocks, of which it has none, and others about the low expectations of the people. It would be better to have a rational debate rather than such comments about a proud and successful town.

Rob Marris: I certainly agree. Many of my hon. Friend's constituents work for HMRC on child benefit. Derogatory remarks about the town of Washington or about everyone who works for HMRCone sometimes gets a flavour of those remarksare not helpful to a constructive debate. Clearly there have been problems in HMRC, to state the obvious. If Members of this House and members of the public stopped for a moment and wondered how widespread those problems were, they would see that the results are very serious but the causes are a few people who made mistakes. That makes the issue much more difficult to address, but we are starting to do so. A few people were involved and not everyone who works for HMRC, whether or not they include my hon. Friend's constituents from the fine town of Washington or elsewhere. We need a measured and constructive debate.

Graham Stuart: There have been 2,000 security breaches in the organisation. The reason why the House and the Opposition are so determined to hold Ministers to account is that a Minister, the then Chief Secretary, the right hon. Member for East Ham (Mr. Timms), told the House in May:
	HMRC take confidentiality very seriously and have robust procedures in place to protect information provided by claimants.[ Official Report, 18 May 2007; Vol. 460, c. 952W.]
	That categorical statement was made to this House by a Minister, but what it says is not the case. There have been further breaches, of which the one in question is just the most egregious. It is therefore for Ministers to take responsibility. The weasel words of the hon. Gentleman and his colleagues do not do justice to the seriousness of the issue.

Rob Marris: If the hon. Gentleman will allow me, I will respond to that bluster later in my remarks.
	Having talked about process and a constructive debate, we have to be aware of what the hon. Member for Twickenham (Dr. Cable) said in an extremely constructive and helpful speechI did not agree with every word; Members would not expect me toabout the ease of being wise after the event. The official Opposition must be careful about hindsight, as must we all. I lived in Canada for a number of years and followed the Canadian football league, and I know that there is something called a Monday-morning quarterback. It takes place with 20:20 hindsight, as Sunday's game is discussed on the Monday and people talk about all the plays that could have been made. That is the benefit of hindsight.
	Let us look at the Government's proposals that now, with hindsight, the official Opposition support. They argue for more houses, transparency in party funding, the benefits of migration and immigration, Islamic finance initiatives, some central control over the botched railways privatisation, police and community support officers, the benefits of flexible working, the NHS being free at the point of use without patient vouchers, passports and all that nonsense, rights for lesbians, gays, bisexuals and transgender people

John Hemming: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

Rob Marris: No, I shall carry on. Other such issues include maternity leave, paternity leave and adoption leave, the national minimum wage and, on another Treasury matter, the independence of the Bank of England. They say, Oh yes, with hindsight, we should have had that policy, but Labour got there first.

John Hemming: The hon. Gentleman perhaps misses the point. Yes, the task was delegated, but policies should have been established and enforced by the Government. Underlying everything, is there not the attitude problem that was highlighted earlier? The attitude problem from the Government is the view that the people are there to serve the Government, rather than the Government to serve the people. Things are done and risks are taken with people's data for the convenience of the Government and the ease of bureaucracy, when the Government should serve the people.

Rob Marris: That is a fine sentiment, but I do not want to get drawn too far down that track. I caution the hon. Gentleman to be a little careful, because I suspectI do not know, because I do not attend his advice surgeriesthat, like me and every other hon. Member, he has many people coming to those surgeries who want the Government to do things for them. In fact, part of the difficulty that we have with a segment of society is its over-dependence on the Government. The way in which that issue is refracted by politiciansthis is too often but not always the caseis by their saying, for example, We have a problem with obesity, let the school sort it out. There is sometimes too much of a desire from a segment of the population to have the Government do things for them.

John Mann: I raised the question of hindsight earlier. Did my hon. Friend foresee this problem, as one of the 650 elected Members of Parliament? I did not see it coming, and neither did the Treasury Sub-Committee on which I served, which was chaired by a Conservative Member. Otherwise we would have had the opportunity to call HMRC to account, to visit and question staff, and to delve under the surface of what was happening. Perhaps we should all apologise.

Rob Marris: I am not sure that we should all apologise, but my hon. Friend is right. If we were blessed with such hindsight, we would go to the excellent racecourse in Wolverhampton and put on bets on events for which we knew the outcome. I hope that the Treasury Committee and its Sub-Committee will look into the matter thoroughly.

John Mann: The point is that the Treasury Committee and Sub-Committee are specifically delegated by Parliament to investigate such organisations, so that parliamentarians from different parties can get under the surface of what is happening. Is this not a classic case in which although hindsight is wonderful, if such an investigation had happened in the past few years, the problem might have been identified? Therefore, do we not share a responsibility for failing to have the vision to spot the potential problem?

Rob Marris: I agree that we have a shared responsibility, and some people are prone to think that they could have had the foresight to see what might have happened. I hope that the debate will show the House in a good light and as being prepared to look constructively at difficulties in the running of government, with a positive contribution from at least some Opposition Members. I hope that we can give a few pointers for the Committeeor even the Conservative-led Sub-Committeewhen it examines the issue.

John McDonnell: I had not intended to comment on the debate, because it is untimely and precipitous, given that the inquiry has not reported. However, I remind my hon. Friend that, in the debate on the merger that formed HMRC, several of us raised the implications of staff cuts and management issues, including the Lean system. We have also raised the closure of Inland Revenue offices and the impact on services. Those were indicators of possible problems, and I hope that the inquiry will address those wider issues.

Rob Marris: I understand my hon. Friend's points about staff cuts; he is well informed about such matters through his links with the Public and Commercial Services Union. I understand the concerns about staff cuts, which were also raised by the Select Committee on Work and Pensions, of which I was a member, in the last Parliament. However, from the information of which I am awareit may be only a small piece of the canvasit is not staff cuts that have led to the present problems.

John McDonnell: It is inappropriate to pre-empt the inquiry, but any inquiry should extend beyond the narrow issue. We know, from HMRC's staff survey, that morale is at its lowest in its history, or in that of the predecessor organisations.

Rob Marris: rose

Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. Before the hon. Gentleman resumes his speech, may I point out that the Chair is encouraged to place time limits on speeches when a sufficiency of Members indicate a wish to speak? On this occasion, the evidence before Mr. Speaker suggested that no Labour Members wished to speak in the debate. No time limit was therefore imposed. I ask the hon. Gentleman to respect the difficulty that the Chair had in judging the situation and be aware that others wish to contribute to the debate.

Rob Marris: I am grateful for that very helpful guidance. I have reached the final section of my remarks, which I shall try to keep brief, and I shall not take any more interventions.
	As politicians, we have difficulty in coming to grips with the fast-changing world of information technology. I do not say that every hon. Member has that difficulty, but I struggle with it, and from talking to colleagues, I know that they do so as well. Part of the problem is the average age of Members. Much of the information technology around us has come on to the scene while we have been adults. Most Members can deal with e-mails, texting and spreadsheets, but we struggle with the processthe epistemology and methodology. The previous Government struggled with that, and so have this Government in the past 10 years. So have computer suppliers, such as EDS, which has a rubbish record, as I discovered when I served on the Work and Pensions Committee.
	The idea that technological transformation will make an organisation more efficient only works if it is accompanied by business transformation. We have struggled with that as a concept. We also have difficulties with the desire for privacy on the one handunderstandably so, as 25 million citizens have had their privacy potentially invaded by the loss of the discsand on the other by an experience that I suspect we have all had at one time or another of phoning an organisation and, after being kept on hold and told to press various buttons, being asked for information that one has supplied on previous occasions. One often wishes that the organisation had kept that information. The Government have tried the ask once, use many times approach that has been adopted by other large organisations, but it is difficult to balance that with the need for privacy. That balancing act is not always got right, and it is something that the House has never really discussed. We talk about whether IT initiatives have cost more than expected or have produced the desired outcomes, but we do not deal with their more philosophical, business transformation aspects.
	It takes a problem such as the one that we are debating today to highlight the difficulty that I have described. The House needs to pay more attention to the broader, philosophical background to which the right hon. Member for Charnwood adverted in his speech. We need to deal with the immediate problem, but we should also take a step back so that we can see where our society, in which the Government are a leading player, is going in respect of IT systems and privacy. People may wish that they did not have to give the same information many times, but they also have an overwhelming and understandable desire for privacy when information is held by organisations.

John Redwood: I rise to support the wise words of my right hon. Friend the Member for Charnwood (Mr. Dorrell), and the words of my hon. Friend the shadow Chancellor. My right hon. Friend was right to say that, above all, we are debating a cultural issue. It is a matter of grave concern that HMRC does not regard looking after data as its fundamental duty, and that it does not consider that the customers or taxpayers whom it serves have every right to expect the highest possible standards when it comes to protecting the very important and extensive personal data that they are forced to give to the state, on pain of prison, so that taxes can be calculated and levied.
	We are discussing accountability. We have held this debate because we think that the Chancellor of the Exchequer did not tell us enough when he first made a statement to the Houselet alone todayand that he did not explain all the details that he knew at that time. The doctrine of ministerial accountability has moved on in recent years, and I welcome that. Twenty years ago, a Minister who had presided over such a major disaster would have offered to resign automatically. There would have been no question about that, but I do not think that it is fair or right for a Minister to resign if a junior official goes against the rules or makes an egregious error about which the Minister can know nothing and whose outcome he or she certainly does not seek. If we were looking in this debate at a single error made by a junior official about which the Chancellor knew nothing, there would be no question to answer under the new doctrine of accountability. However, the contention of my hon. Friend the shadow Chancellor is that we are looking not at one error but at a series of them. Some have said that there have been 2,000 errors of a similar kind, although not all on the scale of the most recent one, but my hon. Friend has contended that it is part of the culture, and therefore possibly a fault of the policy, that such things are happening at all.
	That is why I asked the Chancellor of the Exchequer whether, in light of recent events, he had made changes to the procedure and policies that govern the handling of data. He answered that he had made one change. The hon. Member for Twickenham (Dr. Cable) and others did not think that that was sufficient, but the implication of the Chancellor's reply is interesting, as it suggests that he felt that the existing system was not adequate and needed to be changed. In addition, the Chancellor has appointed a committee of inquiry to see whether the system as a whole needs changing and improving, which suggests that the problem did not arise through one official making a mistake but through a systemic failure inherent in the policy.
	The most important error to have occurred has not received enough attention. In March, a similar volume of information was sent in a similar manner. Fortunately, the discs did not go missing, but that event should have alerted the previous Chancellor of the Exchequer to the seriousness of the possible problems that such sloppy data handling could cause. If anyone is culpable, therefore, it is the former Chancellor and his junior Minister responsible for these matters, as they did not respond when things went wrong. Could they have responded? Did they know? We now learn that a senior manager in HMRC was well aware of the error in March, and it does not speak well for the leadership provided by the then Chancellor and other Ministers that that official did not pass on the information to the Chancellor's private officeor, if he did pass it on, that the former Chancellor and the responsible Minister did not understand its significance, and therefore did not take action.
	That brings me back to the question of culture. No one on the Opposition Benches with experience of running Departments or big companiesI have had the privilege of doing bothbelieves that a single person can possibly know every decision, read every e-mail, or be copied into every transaction. That is why I accept that errors will occasionally be made that are not the wish of the person at the top. Since such errors are not inherent in the policy or culture laid down by that person, I believe that he or she should be forgiven. However, the culture at HMRC did come from the top and it seemed to say, We do not regard the sanctity of personal data as crucial. We do not think that should be your No. 1 duty.
	I suspect that if we could see more of the relevant e-mail traffic and memos we would discover that Ministers wanted the merger of Revenue and Customs to give rise to a more aggressive Inland Revenue that got more money out of more people, more quickly. Since the merger, I certainly have received many more complaints from constituents, very often to the effect that HMRC has extracted money on rather bogus arguments, or incorrectly. It has then had to return that money. I suspect that the cultural shift that the then Chancellor orchestrated and sent down the line was that he wanted the new merged organisation to be much better at collecting more money from people and companies. If that is the culture being promoted, it is not easily compatible with one that is customer friendly. In a customer-friendly culture, staff would be told, Your No. 1 priority should be to treat customers well, and that means that you must look after their data.
	Others have said that what has happened demonstrates that the Government cannot be trusted with the wider range of data collected for ID cards. Naturally, I agree: the public are now extremely suspicious of the Government's ability to handle data and of their trustworthiness in dealing with that information. In the days ahead, Treasury Ministers who want to rescue their ailing position on data handling must demonstrate that they have learned the lessons and that they have put in place a system that will not allow such errors to happen again. However, the evidence from the Chancellor and other Ministers on the Treasury Bench today gives us no sign that we are about to reach that happy situation.
	We have been told that one change has been made to the relevant proceduresomething to do with the internal post at HMRC. We have heard nothing about encryption, or about reducing the amount of data that can be moved, either on a disc or in some other manner. We have heard nothing about introducing personal couriers to transport such sensitive data, or about reopening discussions with the NAO about how much data are needed and on what basis. My understanding of audit procedure is that it is done by sample, so why on earth were the records of 25 million people sent through the post? Could not a proper sample have been made? We have heard no explanation from Ministers as to why auditors cannot go to the data, rather than the other way around.
	It is pathetic that so many days after the scandal was first reported we have not had a straightforward statement from someone on the Treasury Bench about how elementary protections and precautions for data handling and transmission have been put in place. Such defences would be expected in any medium-sized company, let alone a large one. We also need to know why the Chancellor has been so dilatory in coming to the House, and so reluctant to have information dragged out of him. It is apparently fine to share with the world, through the postal system, the unprotected records of 25 million people, but when it comes to data that this House needssuch as where the 25 billion used for Northern Rock, has come from and the asset protection that has been put in placewe are not allowed to have it. When it comes to information on what action the Chancellor plans to take to deal with the data-handling shambles, we are not allowed it even after a full debate and a statement.
	The Chancellor's Department at senior level knew about the problem on 8 November. We are told that it was two days before the Chancellor was told, so that shows that he had not told his staff that such things were important or mattered to himotherwise they would have told him immediately and not taken the risk. It then took him another 10 days, until 20 November, to come to the House of Commons to tell us what had gone wrong. That does not speak well of a Government who believe in Parliament and think it central to our national life; nor does it speak well of a Government who claim to care about people's data. If the Government knew 12 days beforehand that the data might have been stolen, and had certainly gone walkabout, why were the public not told and warned then? Why were they not told and warned through the natural routea full statement to this court of Parliament? That is what should have happened.
	The Chancellor's excuse is that he wanted time to talk to the Information Commissioner. He then tried to blame the banks, although they were told only on the Friday evening. The Chancellor now says that one or two banks wanted a bit more time, but it was hardly sporting of him to take up all the working days of the week, keeping the information to himself, telling the banks only on Friday evening when, no doubt, officials and Ministers wanted to go home and leave the banks with the problem over the weekend.
	That reeks of a Government who are after our money but not out to give us service. It reeks of a Government who speak about the importance of democracy but do not treat the House of Commons seriously. It reeks of a Government who claim to value the people of this country but who cannot be bothered to tell them promptly when the Government make a mistake. It is a disgrace and it is high time that Ministers on the Treasury Bench came up with a better defence and some resolute action so that we can be reassured that in future they deserve to handle our data.

Nick Palmer: I am aware that a number of Members want to speak so I shall try to be reasonably brief. I shall try, too, to follow the example of the hon. Member for Twickenham (Dr. Cable), who gave a serious speech, in contrast to the one we have just heard and the one from the shadow Chancellor.
	This is a serious matter that affects half the country, as we have all repeatedly said, and as other Members have pointed out, it raises issues that affect the public handling of confidential data in general. As my hon. Friend the Member for Wolverhampton, South-West (Rob Marris) said, there is a trade-off in all such situations between considerations of efficiency and considerations of security. That is true, too, in private industry. I was in IT management in the private sector for 18 years and we were constantly confronted with that issue.
	The instinct of IT professionals throughout the industry, public and private, is to give the user what he wants and, if necessary, cut a corner. That is human nature and we have to recognise it and deal with it. We need clear guidelines for what IT professionals should do in every conceivable situation and who they should address for advice in cases where something unanticipated arises. If they follow those procedures we should protect them.
	There is a tendency in the House and elsewhere to describe all safeguards as red tape until they are actually needed, when they suddenly become matters of life importance. We do not often make speeches in favour of red tape, but sometimes we need to point out that red tape is necessary to slow down the action of people eager to provide information they have been asked for, against the wider interest.
	I have a few suggestions about the issues that we should focus on. In exchanges with the hon. Members for Twickenham and for Birmingham, Yardley (John Hemming), I made a point about field-level security. The hon. Member for Twickenham responded that it was not a question of how many fields were accessed but of the number of records. In fact, there are three axes: the number of people who can access the database, the number of records in the database and the number of pieces of informationfieldsthey have authority to access.
	Let us consider the parliamentary database and our famous expenses, which the press are always keen to study. It is entirely appropriate that the press can see the field showing our expenditure on correspondence. However, it would not be appropriate for the press to be able to access fields showing individual correspondentsthe people we have written to and what we wrote about. That would intrude on the privacy of those individuals.
	In a sense, it is a red herring to say that the key issue is whether there is greater security in having one huge central database or a lot of distributed ones, and arguing that distributed databases are more secure. That red herring comes up often in the debate on ID cards. As an IT professional, if I have access to 18 databases, bringing them together to produce a single report is a trivial matterthat is not the problem. The problem is not the central database, but access to the individual data items within it. If someone in the health service, or any other body, has too much access to individual pieces of information, the problem needs to be addressed now; it will not get any worse if we add fingerprints. In fact, it would become less intense, because there would be extra safeguards. However, I agree with Members who suggest that there is a problem in the handling of public data generally: because of the sheer volume of data, we have allowed convenience, and even user-friendliness, to take precedence over individual protection.
	My second suggestion relates to limits on mass bulk transfer. In retrospect, we can all say that it is self-evidently absurd that the National Audit Office should want 25 million records. In fact, the NAO denies that it made that request, but as it would obviously be impossible to read 25 million records at that point, an alarm bell should have gone off. However, the fact that it did not is not really the point; the point is that there was no bar to the official concerned saying, Well, let's make life easy. We'll answer quickly and download the lot.
	There should be more red tape and greater protection where large volumes of data are involved. In the narrative the press are trying to construct to show that everything is chaotic, cases have been cited recently of constituents receiving letters with information about one, three or five other people. That is bad and should not happen. However, I think that we can all agree that it is a problem on a different scale. It is the sort of problem that happens under every Government and has happened all the time that public data have existed.
	The transfer of mass volumes of data, however, should be authorised at a senior level. I do not just mean that a procedure should be in place; I mean that there should be a technological block. It should not be possible for a junior official, or managerwe can argue all day about thator anyone beyond the most senior people to authorise the transfer of that volume of data as a one-off operation.
	A third point, which the hon. Member for Twickenham made much of, relates to routine encryption. Again, it is a question of convenience versus protection. In view of the shortage of time, I will not go into that in more detail. There is an additional cost if we insist on the routine encryption of everything. There might be a proportionality question, but I am content to leave that to the inquiry.
	Fourthly, there should be an escalation of responsibility in exceptional cases. The Government and Parliament should do their best to set criteria for all the situations they can think of, but it should also be part of the standard culture that if someone encounters an exceptional situation they do not say, I am an IT genius. I know how to get round this. They should say, I don't know what to do in this situation. I'm going to my senior management. Most IT people accept that culture only reluctantly. The IT instinct is to say, I can fix it. That has to be addressed. It is a serious issue at the centre of things.
	Finally, as my hon. Friend the Member for Hayes and Harlington (John McDonnell) said, there is the question of staffing levels. We have reduced the staffing levels in HMRC. Her Majesty's Opposition think that we should reduce them further. It is reasonable to ask whether that process could have gone too far and whether the staffing levels reflect a number more than a detailed assessment and have reached the point at which a certain corner-cutting culture starts to set in. I do not know, because I do not know the detailed operations of HMRC. However, it would be helpful if the people who were looking into the matter were able to comment on that in more detail in the assessment.
	I will not go on, simply because of the time limits. I was going to say a lot more, but the House will be relieved to hear that I am going to shut up.

George Young: The hon. Member for Broxtowe (Dr. Palmer) will forgive me if I do not follow his argument, but a number of hon. Members have been in the Chamber since the debate began and deserve an opportunity to be heard. I speak as a former Financial Secretary, like my right hon. Friend the Member for Charnwood (Mr. Dorrell), and it is difficult to avoid a twinge of sympathy for the Chancellor of the Exchequer, who finds himself carrying the can for something that happened a few weeks after he entered the Department. In the narrow sense, the Chancellor clearly is not culpable in that he did not put the discs in the envelope. However, the House is interested in the broader questions that have been touched on during the debate and for which Ministers are responsible.
	Ministers are responsible for the additional functions that they have placed on the department and the resources that they have given the department to perform those functions. Ministers, who sit at the top of the management chain, are responsible for sending down that chain the right signals to influence morale and performancea job that they ignore at their peril.
	On the first point, Ministers took two decisions. The first was to transfer to HMRC responsibility for child benefit. That responsibility originally rested with the Department for Work and Pensions. The decision gave the Inland Revenue a substantial new management challenge, as well as a cultural shock, because it found itself paying out money instead of collecting it.
	Secondly, Ministers merged the two arms of HMRC: the Inland Revenue and Customs and Excise. My right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Rushcliffe (Mr. Clarke) and I looked at that option in the 1990s and rejected it. The client base and the culture were different, and we were not convinced that the economies were there. The Government came to the same conclusion in 2000. In response to the Treasury Committee's first report on the matter in 2000, the Government said that they believed that the synergies could
	be achieved without the risks, upfront and opportunity costs and structural upheaval which merger would inevitably entail.
	The response continued:
	Thus, while the Government accepts that merger might bring some of the benefits outlined by the Committee, it believes that they can be achieved without the disbenefits of merger through a dynamic and focused programme of closer working.
	In other words, the Government did not think that it was worth the gamble, but four years later they changed their mind.
	The Chancellor and the Prime Minister have asserted that my party is somehow implicated in the rushed and botched merger of Revenue and Customs. I have looked at the record of the debates we had when the relevant Bill was going through Parliament. My hon. Friend the Member for Chichester (Mr. Tyrie), who was the spokesman at the time, said:
	Although we did not oppose the Bill on Second Reading, we had a number of major concerns about it. Merging the departments involved is a major change, and we are not convinced that it was given enough consideration by the Government or that its implementation was properly thought through.
	He went on to say that he was
	worried that the measure might prejudice taxpayer confidentiality.[ Official Report, 6 April 2005; Vol. 432, c. 1520.]
	He said that
	the retention of confidentiality...is at the heart of safeguarding...people's right to privacy and, therefore...their trust in the Revenue service.[ Official Report, 26 January 2005; Vol. 430, c. 396.]
	So when the Bill that merged the two departments went through the House, the Government had been warned that confidentiality was an issue.
	The tax credit ingredient was then thrown into the pot, on top of the merger and the additional responsibilities. The Revenue had to run the most complicated financial interface between citizen and statethe tax credit system, which has displaced the Child Support Agency as top of the problems that MPs deal with in their advice bureaux. Ministers must take responsibility for the consequences of new responsibilities and the merger.
	That leads me to my second point, which is on resources. In the 2004 spending review, the administration budget for all the Chancellor's departments was flat in nominal terms. A saving of 16,000 posts was pencilled in. Under the 2007 comprehensive spending review, departmental expenditure limits will decline by 5 per cent. a year for the next three years. That is a challenging settlement. The Chancellor had to pencil in those savings to make the sums add up, but I wonder whether they were thought through, and whether they are really deliverable. The Treasury Committee, which undertook a report on the efficiency savings in the Chancellor's Budget, concluded:
	Evidence received...shows that the indicators used...to measure the quality of...services are not adequate to assess the experience of service users, and in particular are not adequate to measure the extent to which its services meet the...needs of its...client groups.
	That leads on to my last point about management and morale. There have been all sorts of warnings on that score. The tax faculty of the Institute of Chartered Accountants said:
	We are concerned that post merger the overall management structure of HMRC lacks clarity and focus. The lines of management accountability and responsibility are not always clear, either it seems to HMRC staff or to external stakeholders.
	The Chartered Institute of Taxation gave evidence to the Committee in January, and said:
	we do have concerns about the current position of HMRC and their progress. We see them as an organisation that is under considerable pressure.
	In my view, there is an audit trail involving policy, resources and leadership that leads back to Ministers. They cannot divorce themselves from the consequences of what happened down the line in the post room in Washington.
	Finally, what conclusions should we draw? We need to await the inquiry, but I think that we can anticipate what it will say. It will be like other inquiries, such as those on transport or social services: it will say that primary responsibility rests with the individual who breached the regulations, as with the engine driver who went past a red signal, or the social worker who did not insist on seeing for herself the child on the at-risk register. However, those other reports went on to say that the signal was in the wrong place and the driver was not trained properly, and that the social worker had too many cases, but that their manager did not pick up on that. In that way, the trail goes up the management line. My money is on the same type of conclusion being reached in the case that we are considering. The Government have to be cautious about grandiose schemes, pencilling in large savings, major reorganisations, and ignoring warning signalsof which there were many. At the end of the day, the buck has to rest with Ministers, who should not resile from their responsibilities.

Adrian Bailey: Out of respect for other Members, who have been waiting to speak for a long time, I will try to keep my remarks brief. First, I reiterate what other Members have said: we are talking about a hugely serious mistake, and the Government have to take profound measures to ensure that it never happens again. I have to say that I think that my right hon. Friend the Chancellor has demonstrated exactly what good government is by coming to the House and apologising, and by the measures that he put in place to try to prevent any repetition of the problem. I fear that the rather knockabout contributions of Conservative Members, with one or two honourable exceptions, have not done justice to the importance and complexity of the issues.
	There is a range of issues underlying the mistake that demands the most serious consideration in the House. The first issue was outlined by the right hon. Member for Charnwood (Mr. Dorrell), who spoke about culture. Why did the National Audit Office need that information and why did it try to obtain it in that way? There are huge questions about whether information was needed on that scaleI do not think that it wasand whether it was appropriate to deliver a disc from HMRC via a courier. One alternative that has been debated is the electronic transfer of information. I do not profess to understand the technology of the systems, but even the technological transfer of information is not absolutely safe or fool-proof. There is therefore a big debate to be had about the relevance of the information and how Government Departments should share it to guarantee its security as far as is humanly possible.
	It is quite reasonable to assume that Government Departments will co-operate to ensure that information is shared if they need it to perform their operations. There is obviously a debate to be had about the proportionality of information sharing and the needs of different Departments.
	That leads me to the second issue of systems. As a layman, I find it inconceivable that such important and comprehensive information should be stored and transported in that way. We have been assuredand I have no reason to believe otherwisethat it was against correct operational procedure, so it is important to ensure that Government Departments are security compliant with the provisions of the Data Protection Act 1998, and that the Information Commissioner operates effective monitoring systems. That appears not to be the case in this instance.
	Thirdly, the balance of independence and responsibility is important. My right hon. Friend the Chancellor has accepted responsibility because the buck stops with the appropriate Minister. We have had a long debate about the appropriate scale of delegation, but HMRC is operationally independent and is headed by the chair of the trusteesthe extent of his competence has drawn compliments from Members on both sides of the Houseyet things went wrong. Ultimately, is it right for the Chancellor of the Exchequer to be expected to supervise and micro-manage an officer who is generally regarded as highly competent and capable of carrying out those functions? There is whiff of humbug about the contribution of some Opposition Members. I have been a Member of the House for many years, and have heard accusations levelled at the Chancellor, and the previous and present Prime Ministers for micro-managing and interfering in Government Departments. However, when they stand aside and let the professional run those Departments they are criticised for the mistakes that have been made.
	The hon. Member for Twickenham (Dr. Cable) highlighted the wider issue of data protection and whether changes need to be made in the light of technological developments in the Government's delivery of services. What new level of protection, if any, is needed? The hon. Gentleman gave the example of someone who wanted to gain access to their central medical records. The logic of his argument was that if we wanted to guarantee that those records went to the appropriate person, a biometric ID card would be the best way of ensuring that. There is an element of contradiction in the hon. Gentleman's position.
	Like many other hon. Members, I have spent 25 days with the police on a parliamentary police liaison scheme. One of the things that I heard from the police time and again was that ID cards would be a huge boon in helping them to deliver the service that we want. From the response to a question that I asked the Home Secretary earlier this week, it is already evident that biometric identification in passports for foreign nationals living in this country has contributed significantly to reducing the scale of illegal immigration. I ask Ministers not to resile from their position, but to recognise that there are huge data protection issues that need to be addressed before ID cards are introduced.

Angela Watkinson: I shall allow my hon. Friend the Member for South-West Hertfordshire (Mr. Gauke) time to speak, but in the few minutes remaining I want to introduce into the debate a facet that has not yet been mentionedsystemic failure in another department of HMRC: the one that issues VAT registration numbers.
	The department has a target of issuing numbers in eight weeks. I shall use as an illustration a constituency case because I believe it to be typical. My constituent, Mr. Prutton, first applied for a VAT registration number eight months agoI repeat, eight months. Persistent correspondence and telephone calls to the Newcastle office and the complaints department in Newry have got him nowhere. He submitted to HMRC a range of personal datathe application form, a questionnaire, invoices relating to his new business and, most importantly, bank statements. Those are not bank details such as the sort code and the name and number of his account, but bank statements showing movements and balances on his account. He has had no indication from HMRC's VAT department whether those documents arrived safely, whether his case is being considered or where it has got to.
	Clearly, the department is a long, long way off its eight-week target. My office has been pursuing the matter for Mr. Prutton and there have been numerous phone calls to the office of the chief executive of the VAT department. I, too, have got nowhere, apart from promises. This morning, belatedly

Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. I am sorry to interrupt the hon. Lady, but I think that she is moving beyond the terms of both the motion and the Government amendment. There is a separate issue, I know, about VAT registration delays, but I do not think the case she is making fits in good order with the terms of the motion.

Angela Watkinson: I read the motion quite carefully and thought that I was making an argument for systemic failure in HMRCI accept the Chair's advice, of courseand the security of individuals' data, which is another element of the motion. If you will allow me to continue, Mr. Deputy Speaker, I shall.

Mr. Deputy Speaker: If the hon. Lady can steer more in that direction, she may continue. The point about security is the main theme of the debate this afternoon.

Angela Watkinson: I shall curtail my comments even further than I had intended.
	May I ask the Minister to do whatever she can to find out where Mr. Prutton's documents are, whether his case is being dealt with, and whether that is an indication of systemic failure within the VAT department? I received a letter this week from the Federation of Small Businesses suggesting that the problem is widespread and asking for something to be done about it.

Philip Dunne: In the short time available to me before the wind-ups, I should like to focus on three specific aspects of this shoddy state of affairs. First, I want to speak up for the chairman of HMRC, Mr. Paul Gray, who has been a regular witness before the Public Accounts Committee and one of the few senior civil servants who has been prepared to acknowledge error where it has occurred within his department. He has had to deal with many difficulties arising out of the merger of the Inland Revenue and Customs, to which other hon. Members have referred. In this case, he saw the seriousness of the failure and was accountable in a manner that must be applauded across government and is in stark contrast to the approach taken by some of the other heads of department, on whose watches similar disasters have occurred. In such cases, they have not taken responsibility. Ministers must carefully examine how Mr. Gray has conducted himself and how they are conducting themselves. I applaud him for that.
	My second point deals with the sequence of events and responsibility. As my hon. Friend the Member for Tatton (Mr. Osborne) pointed out in his opening remarks, the Government have been quick to blame junior officials. The National Audit Office e-mail exchanges with HMRC, which came out two days after the Chancellor's statement, are extremely revealing. In contrast to what the Chancellor said earlier, it is clear that there are two aspects to this calamity. The first aspect is that the CDs were put in the post and transmitted contrary to procedurethat clearly should not have happened. The second aspect is the decision to provide sensitive data, which is more fundamental and lies at the heart of this problem.
	I understand that the NAO requested a set of data in order to verify its sampling methodology when it came to do the audit of child benefit, because that area of work had been taken within HMRC having previously been done by the Department for Work and Pensions. The NAO sought certain data, but those did not include sensitive data such as bank account details and addresses that would identify individuals. Several people in the departmentnot just a junior officialwere involved in deciding to provide the full set of data.
	That is made crystal clear in an e-mail of 13 March 2007 timed at 15:23. Because of the measures taken to protect the identity of the individuals concerned, we do not know exactly who in HMRC sent it, but we can see that it was copied to one person at the NAOwe presume it was sent to the NAOand to three people in HMRC, one of whom, we are led to believe, is the process owner for child benefit.
	The first sentence of the e-mail states that somebody had
	passed this over to me for my views.
	It is thus evident that consultation was taking place at different seniority levels in HMRC on the issue of how much data should be provided. It continues:
	Your original request was for 100 per cent. scan of the data, and fortunately a scan was complete earlier this year, and we have shared this with you at no additional cost to the department.
	The important bit is the fact that the e-mail goes on to state:
	I know you are meeting with Compliance and KAI colleagues on Wednesday and all your issues regarding data extracts etc should be taken up with them.
	Two other departments in HMRC are involvedquite apart from there being a direct interface with HMRCin making this decision. The e-mail goes on to say:
	I must stress we must make use of data we hold and not over burden the business by asking them to run additional data scans/filters that may incur a cost to the department.
	That exposes the fact that this was all about saving money within HMRC and not about protecting data. That is where the Government have not come clean in their explanation of why we got into this sorry state of affairs.
	In an intervention on the Chancellor, I referred to encryption and data protocols. It is lamentable that Treasury Ministers have not been prepared to tell us that they have undertaken a complete overhaul of data protection procedures in their Department. It would be refreshing if the Minister were prepared to be a bit more forthcoming about exactly what Ministers have asked to be undertaken in their Department. Perhaps she could also explain what distinguishes those procedures from those that were in place before this terrible state of affairs arose.
	The Government do not seem to realise the impact of this data loss on our population. There is fury out there that such sensitive data could have been lost. People can no longer trust the Government with their bank details, so how can the Government possibly expect people to trust them with even more sensitive data such as those that will be needed for an ID card? I take no pleasure in saying this, but this Government have lost the trust of the people.

David Gauke: When the House was informed last Tuesday that the entire database of families receiving child benefit had been lost, there was a sense of shock on all sides. Details of every child in the country, details of the bank accounts of 7.5 million families, and details of 25 million people were downloaded on to two discs by a Government official, put in the post and lost. What has become clear in the past few days is the utter inadequacy of the Government's performance before and after this appalling breach of security.
	As we have heard from my right hon. Friends the Members for Charnwood (Mr. Dorrell) and for Wokingham (Mr. Redwood), there is a failure of culture within HMRC in terms of respecting the sanctity of personal data. As my right hon. Friend the Member for North-West Hampshire (Sir George Young) said, Government policies have contributed to the strains put on HMRC. One of those strains, as my hon. Friend the Member for Upminster (Angela Watkinson) pointed out, has been caused by failures in VAT registration applications. My hon. Friend the Member for Ludlow (Mr. Dunne) showed how the information provided by the National Audit Office and the e-mails there put the Government's position in a very poor light.
	There are three elements to the Government's performance in this matter: incompetence, complacency and evasiveness. First, on incompetence, last week the Government portrayed this security breach as the consequence of the actions of one individual. Before turning to the detail of that claim, let me make it clear that this was no isolated incident of failure. There is a long list of data security failures by HMRC, but its failures are broader than that. Business and professional organisations are damning of its performance, whether it be delays in VAT registrations, problems in filing online returns or inaccurate collection of income tax through pay-as-you-earnnot to mention the disastrous administration of the tax credits system, with billions of pounds being overpaid, billions underpaid and billions lost through fraud and error.
	Let me run through some of the examples of data protection failures. In September 2005, the names and addresses of UBS customers were lost. In May 2007, 42,000 families' tax credits and bank details were lost. In August 2007, the details of 400 people were left on a laptop in a stolen car and lost. In October 2007, HMRC lost a package containing six discs that went missing in the post. In November 2007, it emerged that HMRC had lost a CD-ROM containing confidential data on 15,000 Standard Life customers. The loss of child benefit data is clearly not a one-off. Losing data appears to be part of the culture of HMRC. It does not mean to, but it is like the England football team adopting route one tactics or the Labour party getting embroiled in funding scandals. HMRC appears to be unable to stop losing data on a regular basis; it has form.
	That brings me to complacency. On every occasion that data are lost, up pops a Minister to declare that it will not happen againthat it is a one-off. To be fair to the Chancellor, this time he did not say that, but that is what usually happens. Then they say that procedures are being reviewed urgently. We are always told that HMRC takes confidentiality very seriously and that it has robust procedures to protect information, yet still, within weeks or months, another breach occurs. Can Ministers honestly say that they are confident that another security breach is not on the cards? Are they confident, for example, that the tax credits database is secure?
	Let us return to this particular security breach. What was the Chancellor's first response? Reasonably, he immediately instructed that comprehensive searches be carried out of all premises where the missing data might be foundfair enough. One might have thought that HMRC would have thought of that, but it is a reasonable first response. Given the seriousness of the breach, and the urgent need to recover the discs, one might have assumed that the instruction would not just have been issued immediately, but implemented immediately. Indeed, the Chancellor told the Commons that he asked for an immediate investigation to be initiated that weekend. But what the Chancellor did not tell uswe learned this only with the release of the NAO briefing paper last Thursdaywas that it appears that NAO searched its offices for the first time seven days later, on Saturday 17 November. If I am wrong, I am happy to be corrected. If that constitutes an immediate investigation, no wonder satisfaction with HMRC is so low.
	While HMRC delayed the undertaking of a proper search, what did the Chancellor do? The Government have consistently emphasised that there was no evidence of fraud as a consequence of the missing discs, as far as we know, but remember that at that time they did not know that because they had not spoken to the banks. There was a distinct possibility at that time that the discs were in the hands of fraudsters, and for all the Government knew, millions of pounds could have been being stolen from 7.5 million bank accounts. The Chancellor failed to tell the institutions that could do something about itthe banksto prevent that from happening on the Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday or for most of the Friday.
	For four days, the Chancellor left our bank accounts vulnerable simply because he hoped that our discs would turn up, and only told the banks late on the Friday. The Chancellor would not, or could not, recognise the seriousness of the situation and take immediate and necessary steps to protect our security by letting the banks know. What is the Chancellor's response today? Sensitive data will be sent to third parties only with the consent of senior officials. But we know from the NAO e-mails that senior officials consented to the transfer to third parties when such a breach happened in March 2007, so today's announcement takes us no further on at all.
	Let us look at evasiveness. Despite the Chancellor's protestations today, it was clear last week that the Government's case was that one junior official was to blame. The procedures were clear, but they were breached by a 23-year-old junior clerk, acting on his own. That was the impression given. He was left hung out to dry, treated no better than the deputy leader of the Labour party. But we now know that HMRC officials were involved in an e-mail exchange about sending the full child benefit data to the NAO, including the
	process owner for Child Benefit
	a senior manager. It is clear from that e-mail exchange, as my hon. Friend the Member for Ludlow pointed out, that despite the requests of the NAO to strip out details relating to bank accounts, HMRC did not do so because of cost, and a number of HMRC officials, some of them quite senior, knew that to be the case. A HMRC managernot an official, as the Chancellor saidmade the decision to provide the full data.
	At no point in the Chancellor's statement last week was that made clear. The Prime Minister said it was a matter of procedures being in place, but not followed. He said that the manual of protective security stipulated that any data sent out should have been encrypted. However, as  The Sunday Times pointed out in its investigation, officials in the child benefit office
	had not even heard of the Manual of Protective Security, let alone been trained in its strictures.
	An IT expert, Andrew Beckett, pointed out:
	The manual does not say which information should be encrypted. It's up to the senior responsible officer to determine the impact level of the information being compromised.
	What happens in practice? We learn that private financial firms and advisers regularly receive CDs containing unencrypted sensitive personal data. Legal  General, Norwich Union and Prudential all said that that happened last week. Let us get some straight answers. How many officials had access to the child benefit database? How many officials had authority to download it? How often were data sent out from Washington encrypted and unencrypted? Are other databases, which the NAO examines, such as the income tax pay-as-you-earn database, provided in the same way? How many officials knew that the full database was being sent to the NAO? How senior were the officials? Why did the Chancellor inform the banks six days after finding out about the breach?
	The Government's explanations have unravelled. When the public have demanded openness and honesty, the Government have been evasive. When the crisis demanded decisiveness, the Chancellor dithered. When the country needed competence, the Government and HMRC were a shambles. Not only two computer discs, but the Government's credibility has been lost. For all the attempts to blame one young clerical assistant, the British public know where the blame lieswith the Government. I urge the House to support the motion.

Jane Kennedy: I appreciate that the subject of this debate concerns the House, and I thank all those who have contributed. Before I consider the detail of the discussion, let me say to the hon. Member for Upminster (Angela Watkinson) that I will look into the constituency case that she raised and deal with it outside the debate. That is probably the appropriate response.
	Let me quickly thank my hon. Friends the Members for Colne Valley (Kali Mountford), for Wolverhampton, South-West (Rob Marris), for Broxtowe (Dr. Palmer) and for West Bromwich, West (Mr. Bailey) for participating in the debate, bringing to it great knowledge and dealing with it in a much more measured manner than some Opposition Members. The subject should be approached with the utmost seriousness.
	The motion asks for an explanation of how the security breach occurred. My right hon. Friend the Chancellor set that out in his statement to the House on 20 November. He has been absolutely consistent and accurate in his comments in the House last week and today. The hon. Member for Tatton (Mr. Osborne), the right hon. Member for Wokingham (Mr. Redwood) and the hon. Member for South-West Hertfordshire (Mr. Gauke) are entitled to be indignant, but they should recognise what I believe all fair-minded Members would acknowledge: my right hon. Friend the Chancellor has the deepest respect for the traditions of the House, especially in how he deals with it as a Minister. My hon. Friend the Member for West Bromwich, West acknowledged that, for which I thank him.
	As my right hon. Friend the Chancellor said, we do not have all the information that we need to establish what went wrong and how two discs containing highly sensitive and personal information came to be missing. That is why Kieran Poynter's report is so necessary.
	The hon. Member for Tatton asked about letters and the competence with which they had been issued. Her Majesty's Revenue and Customs send out more than 7 million letters. That is a big logistical exercise. Up to close of business on 26 November, the child benefit helpline had handled approximately 39,000 calls from customers who were concerned about the data loss. However, it might be of interest to hon. Members to know, by way of comparison, that HMRC contact centres received on average 150,000 calls a day throughout 2006-07 on all their lines of business. That puts in perspective the way in which the public have rightly been able to access call centres to gain advice about their details.
	We are not aware of the specific case of the letters that the hon. Member for Tatton mentioned. If what he said is trueI have no reason to doubt itHMRC regrets that it has happened in a small number of cases. The details in the letters are not sufficient on their own to establish identity in order to open a bank account, claim benefits or in any way abuse an individual's identity.
	The motion asks what policy changes will be introduced to protect the public in future. First, HMRC has immediately communicated to all staff three key steps that must be followed. Transfers must take place only if they are absolutely necessary, written authorisation for the transfer must be given by a senior HMRC manager and a clear instruction must be given regarding the appropriate standard of protection for the transfer. Where directors decide that a data transfer by disc is absolutely unavoidable, such media must in every case be securely encrypted at the appropriate level. Those changes are already in place.

Ben Wallace: Will the Financial Secretary give way?

Jane Kennedy: I am not sure that the hon. Gentleman has been present throughout the debate. I have a limited amount of time, so if he will permit me, I shall press on and try to respond to some of the serious and thoughtful contributions that have been made.
	Secondly, Kieran Poynter, the chairman of PricewaterhouseCoopers, has agreed to undertake an independent review of our data-handling processes in HMRC. His report will be ready by 14 December. Thirdly, the Prime Minister immediately gave the Information Commissioner additional powers to undertake spot checks in relation to Government buildings. I was glad to see that step being taken. The Prime Minister has also asked Gus O'Donnell to ensure that all Departments' and agencies' procedures are being implemented in full and to identify where improvements can be made. I hope that that will serve as the reassurance that the hon. Member for Twickenham (Dr. Cable) asked for earlier.
	The final part of the Opposition motion asks what policy changes will introduced to protect the public. Again, HMRC put in place immediate steps to improve data security. We have undertaken comprehensive steps to protect customers, to find the missing data and to ensure that the lessons are learned and that all efforts are being made to ensure that such a loss can never happen again.
	A number of hon. Members raised proper questions on the steps that we are taking on encryption. It may be of interest to the House to hear what has been done. HMRC has established a central team to handle encryption on behalf of the organisation, to ensure that the proper deployment of encryption is used at the appropriate level. All bulk transfers of sensitive data using CDs are being encrypted and password protected where necessary. Those procedures were implemented on 21 November. [Hon. Members: Ah!] Hon. Members wanted to know what had been done in response and I am explaining what has happened. HMRC has removed the facility for staff to use CDs and other removable media, and only in exceptional circumstances and on approval at director level, as I have said, are staff given access. HMRC is also investigating the electronic transmission of data. It is consulting with the British Bankers Association and currently undertaking further talks to agree standards for and methods of deploying electronic transfers.
	I thank the hon. Member for Ludlow (Mr. Dunne) for his comments about Mr. Paul Gray. I agree with the hon. Gentleman that Mr. Gray has given distinguished service to more than one Whitehall Department, as my right hon. Friend the Chancellor acknowledged last week. The hon. Gentleman went into detail about the three e-mails and about what they do and do not say. I say to him and every other hon. Member who has raised the matter that three e-mails do not tell the full story. That is why it is entirely appropriate that we wait for the inquiries. After that, the House will be able to judge the detail of what has happened. It is not a question of lack of resources or staff cuts; the breach of security should not have happened and there is no excuse for it. I am confident that had the procedures that were already in place been followed, the data would have been protected.
	The hon. Member for Twickenham made a sensible and thoughtful speech. I have responded to his point about encryption, although I do not accept his point about a lack of scrutiny across government. I hope that the work that Gus O'Donnell is undertaking will ensure that the concerns that the hon. Gentleman raised are properly dealt with.
	The right hon. Member for Charnwood (Mr. Dorrell), who gave the most distinguished service as a Cabinet Minister and for whom I have the highest regard, made perhaps the most serious speech to which I am going to respond. I hope that he will accept that my right hon. Friend the Chancellor and I have been entirely focused on what should be the proper way for data relating to customers of Her Majesty's Revenue and Customs to be respected. I agreed with a large part of his criticism. As I have said, procedures were in place. It is not the case that there is a systemic disregard right across Her Majesty's Revenue and Customs for the protection of customers' details. If the procedures that are in place had been followed, we would have safeguarded the confidential information that was requested by the National Audit Office. I know that the staff of Her Majesty's Revenue and Customs are horrified at the failure that we have disclosed to the House.
	I know that the House is very concerned about the nature of what we have been debating today. I should like to leave hon. Members with a quote on the question of whether the merger should ever have happened. This also brings me to the final speech to which I wish to respond, that of the right hon. Member for North-West Hampshire (Sir George Young), whom I also admire very much. Mr. Jeffrey Owens, the director of the centre for tax policy and administration of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, has said the following in conversation with my office, and he is prepared to allow me to use this quote:
	The allegation that the merger of the Inland Revenue and Customs and Excise was a mistake is completely unfounded. The merger was the right thing to do and other countries that have taken this route have found that once the merger has bedded-in, real benefits start to flow through. In fact, out of the other 30 OECD countries there is only one that hasn't adopted this approach. Comparing the UK to the other OECD countries

Andrew Robathan: On a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker

Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. I think that the right hon. Lady has perhaps anticipated the hon. Gentleman, if she has completed the quotation and her speech.

Jane Kennedy: Can I just finish the quote, Mr. Deputy Speaker?

Mr. Deputy Speaker: In the spirit of the occasion, yes, if the right hon. Lady will do so briefly.

Jane Kennedy: Jeffrey Owens' very last comment is:
	Comparing the UK to the other OECD countries, it is quite clear that HMRC is one of the lead tax administrations, both in terms of service delivery and enforcement.
	I shall await the inquiry, as I am sure will the rest of the House.

Question put, That the original words stand part of the Question:
	 The House divided: Ayes 235, Noes 312.

Question accordingly negatived.
	 Question, That the proposed words be there added,  put forthwith, pursuant to Standing Order No. 31 (Questions on amendments), and agreed to.
	Mr. Deputy Speaker  forthwith d eclared the main Question, as amended, to be agreed to.
	 Resolved,
	That this House approves of the decisive action taken by the Government when it became aware of the data loss by HM Revenue and Customs, including the collaborative work undertaken in association with the UK Payments Association, the British Bankers Association and the Building Societies Association and through them individual banks, building societies and other financial institutions which enabled them to put in place appropriate safeguards and monitor any irregular activity; welcomes the decision of the Chancellor of the Exchequer to initiate an urgent investigation by the Metropolitan Police and his appointment of Mr Kieran Poynter to conduct an independent review of HM Revenue and Customs' data handling procedures; acknowledges the steps which have already been taken to improve the department's data transfer processes; and notes the Chancellor's assurance that he will keep the House fully informed of further developments.

DEFERRED DIVISION

Mr. Deputy Speaker: I now must announce the result of a deferred Division on the motion relating to the global navigation satellite system and the European Institute of Technology. The Ayes were 267, the Noes were 201, so the motion was agreed to.
	 [The Division List is  published at the end of today's debates.]

Prisons

Mr. Deputy Speaker: I have to inform the House that Mr. Speaker has selected the amendment in the name of the Prime Minister.

Nick Herbert: I beg to move,
	That this House considers that the Government's management of the prisons system continues to be a national disgrace; notes that within the last two weeks the prison population has reached a record high of 81,547; further notes that a quarter of all prisoners are in cells designed for one fewer person; is gravely concerned that numbers of suicides in custody are rising; notes that the large majority of people in prison are serious, violent or persistent offenders who need access to effective rehabilitation which is not generally available; notes that two-thirds of prisoners re-offend within two years of their release, resulting in substantial cost to the criminal justice system; is concerned that at least 8,500 people have been released early from prison under the End of Custody Licence Scheme; notes that the Government has scaled back the prison building target for 2007 from 2,500 new places to only 700; expresses concern that the Government may be planning to link resources to sentencing as a means of reducing the prison population; disapproves of proposals to abolish magistrates' powers to impose a suspended sentence; and calls upon the Government to introduce honesty in sentencing, halt the End of Custody Licence Scheme and take immediate steps to ensure adequate prison capacity to hold all those sentenced by the courts in the interests of public safety.
	This House debated the prisons crisis four months ago. We said then that the Government's management of overcrowded prisons was a national disgrace. So what has changed since then? The prison population has risen by over 1,200, but capacity has risen by less than 200. Some 4,600 prisoners have been released early on to the streetsa policy described by the previous Lord Chancellor as simply wrong. More than 800 of those criminals have been violent offenders, and 26 went on to commit new offences when they should have been behind bars.
	Millions of pounds have been wasted on accommodating prisoners in police cells. A Victorian wing of Norwich prison was closed by health and safety inspectors because sewage was leaking from broken drainage pipes. Prison vans are arriving late at night to drop off remand prisoners from courts hundreds of miles away because there are no spare cells anywhere closer. Twice as many prisoners are doubling up in cells as when the Government came to power. Nearly a quarter of the entire prison population is now housed in cells designed for one fewer person. Prisoners, as the Minister of State told us this week, are taking up drugs when in jail. Last Friday, the jail population was just 93 below the all-time high, recorded a week ago, and only 300 short of capacity, and that was excluding nearly 200 prisoners locked in police cells.
	So four months after the last debate and five months to the day since the Lord Chancellor took office, the Government's management of prisons continues to be a disgrace.

Ian Lucas: Does the hon. Gentleman accept that one of the reasons for more individuals being in prison is that more offenders have been brought to justice by this Government?

Nick Herbert: If the hon. Gentleman will be patient, I will come to that issue [ Interruption. ] No, I do not accept that point. More offenders have been brought to justice because of the huge increase in the fixed penalty notices that the Government have introduced in an attempt to take cases out of the courts and deal with them in a summary wayalthough it is in fact an administrative way.

Tony Baldry: One of the reasons for prison overcrowding is the reoffending rates, which are high, because overcrowding means less training and education. People are leaving prison less qualified and more drugged up than before. It is a scandal.

Nick Herbert: My hon. Friend is right. A reconviction rate of two thirds of adult offenders after two years means that offenders are cycling back into the criminal justice system. Our goal should be to drive down reoffending rates and so reduce crime and the prison population in the long term. I shall argue that it is wrong to set out with the direct objective of reducing the prison population by shifting people wholesale out of prison whose sentences suggest that they should be there.
	The problem is that the Government will not listen. They have ignored every warning about prison overcrowding. They have ignored warnings from prison governors and probation officers. They have ignored warnings from prison officers, who yesterday said that the Prison Service is in meltdown and that it will not be able to cope much longer. What is the Government's excuse?

Jim Devine: This week, a shadow Minister said that if the Conservative party were in power, it would build new prisons. How many prisons, at what cost and how would that be accommodated in the 6 billion spending black hole?

Nick Herbert: That was not a very sensible intervention. If the hon. Gentleman will be patient, I will come to the answer in my speech, but my premise will be that the demand for prison places has to be met. We will take no lectures from the Government about spending on such matters when they have wasted billions of pounds in their management of the criminal justice system.
	The cost of reoffending, estimated by the Government, is 11 billion a yearsimply to the criminal justice system, let alone to wider society. The cost of accommodating prisoners in police cells could have provided prison accommodation for 250 people. The Government have wasted hundreds of millions of pounds in the management of the criminal justice system that could have been better spent on providing sufficient accommodation.

Ann Widdecombe: rose

Jack Straw: rose

Nick Herbert: I give way to the Lord Chancellor.

Jack Straw: I shall let the right hon. Member for Maidstone and The Weald (Miss Widdecombe) go first

Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. If Members cannot agree, I will decide.

Ann Widdecombe: I am grateful to my hon. Friend and to the Lord Chancellor. My hon. Friend has just heard scorn poured on the proposition that we should both build more prisons and control public spending. Will he confirm that under the previous Conservative Administration we had the biggest capital prison building programme since Victorian times at the same time as we cut taxes?

Nick Herbert: I am grateful for my right hon. Friend's intervention. If we incapacitate offenders and improve rehabilitation we will be able to drive down reoffending rates and in that way deal with the problem of crime. The Government are in the worst of all worlds, with a seriously overcrowded prison population and extraordinarily high reconviction rates. As a consequence, prisoners are cycling back into the system and adding to the costs.

Jack Straw: I hope that the hon. Gentleman will not keep us on tenterhooks about the answer to the question posed by my hon. Friend the Member for Livingston (Mr. Devine). The hon. Gentleman is obviously familiar with other expenditure issues, so perhaps he can answer the simple questions: how many prisons does he propose to build and at what cost?

Nick Herbert: I will do a deal with the Lord Chancellor. When he has published the Carter review, which is an attempt to answer those questions, we will publish our proposals. However, as the Government will not answer any of those questions, how can we reasonably be expected to do so?
	What is clear is that the current situation is untenable, as the Lord Chancellor knows. We cannot go on with a system in which prisons are full to the gunwales. That places strains on prison staff and does not allow the proper rehabilitation of prisoners. It results in all the movements of prisoners around the country to which I have referred, and in prisons that are awash with drugs. We have two choices. Either we can accommodate the demand for prison places that the Government's projections have identified, or we can work to reduce that demand. I shall deal with that second option in a moment.

Jeremy Wright: Does my hon. Friend agree that part of the answer to the question asked by the hon. Member for Livingston (Mr. Devine) is that we will build the extra prison places that we need, using the money for ID cards that we do not need?

Nick Herbert: My hon. Friend is right. We have said already that we would scrap the ID card scheme and use the proceeds to fund emergency accommodation. In that way, we can then scrap the emergency release scheme, which we consider to be entirely wrong.
	What is the Government's excuse for the problems that I have identified? First, they say that they did not expect the increase in the number of prisoners. Last week, a spokesman said that
	the Secretary of State was, and is, faced with an unanticipated and unprecedented increase in the prison population.
	However, it is simply not true that the rise was unanticipated. In 2000, when the current Lord Chancellor was Home Secretary, his officials predicted that the prison population would be at current levels by this year. Two years later, the lowest Home Office projection for today's prison population was 5,000 above current capacity. So let us nail the canard that the Government were not able to anticipate the current demand for prison places: they did know; they were told that greater capacity was needed, and they simply ignored the projections.
	We all know why too few prison places were provided. It was because the current Prime Minister did his level best to prevent that happening. As Anthony Seldon states in his new biography of Tony Blair:
	Disagreements
	that is, between the then Prime Minister and Chancellor
	over Home Office spending were even more intense.
	Seldon says that Blair's
	priorities were for prison financing...The atmosphere was vitriolic. Number 10 accused the Brown camp of trying to destabilise them, Mandelson was going around spreading poison and loyalists on both sides were briefing and counter-briefing against each other.
	What happy days those were. The Lord Chancellor must be relieved that everything is back on such an even keel.
	The Government claim to have provided an extra 20,000 prison places, but 3,000 of those places arise from doubling-up in cells. In 2005, the number of new prison places provided by the Government was just one fifth of the number provided in the year that they came to power. During the Lord Chancellor's previous watch, prison building capacity fell by 86 per cent. over three years. Only three of the new prisons built in the past 10 years were commissioned by the Labour Government; the rest were commissioned by the previous Conservative Administration.
	The Government now say that they will build 9,500 new prison spaces in the next five years, and they claim that that is the largest prison-building programme ever in the UK, but that would be news to the Victorian social reformers. Under the premiership of Lord John Russell, eight new prisons were opened in just five years, and they are the ones that remain in use. The claim is looking distinctly shaky: the Government have admitted that 1,000 of the 9,500 promised places are currently unfunded. They have also said that 2,500 new places would be delivered this year, but that was downgraded yesterday to 1,400.
	We have to hand it to the Lord Chancellorhe is right back on form. As Home Secretary, it took him two years to cut prison building by 65 per cent., but as Lord Chancellor, it has taken him just four months to scale back the number of places by half. Now we know the Government's strategy for dealing with prison overcrowding: release criminals more quickly and build prison places more slowly. The Government will not face up to the fact that even if they deliver the promised extra places, total prison capacity will still be 4,000 places short of their medium-term projection for the prison population. That is assuming that prisons are still full to the gunwales with doubling-up in cells.
	Ministers tell us to wait for the Carter review. We shall not be holding our breath. We have already had two Carter reviews. The first, six years ago, called on the Government to look at radical reform of the prison estate to create conditions better suited to delivering effective rehabilitation. Lord Carter said that the prison estate
	comprises buildings which are worn out, poorly located, offering inadequate regimes and which are expensive to maintain and operate.
	That was six years ago. Nothing happened. Lord Carter tried again. In his second report, he said the Government should replace old and unsuitable prisons. Again nothing happened.
	Every time the Government get into a hole on prisons, the message goes outGet Carter. Then they ignore him. The one time they paid attention was to Lord Carter's disastrous proposal to create the National Offender Management Service, which has since wasted hundreds of billions of pounds. As the right hon. Member for Leicester, East (Keith Vaz), now Chairman of the Home Affairs Committee, said:
	As for the choice of Lord Carter for the prison inquiryhe was the man who completely mucked up our legal aid system. Putting him in charge of the prison system was the wrong decision. If that is what the Lord Chancellor is proposing to do on prisons, he is in for a rough ride.[ Official Report, 9 May 2007; Vol. 460, c. 179.]
	Perhaps the Lord Chancellor will tell us when the next great Carter review is to be published.

Crispin Blunt: Is my hon. Friend aware of an article in  Inside Time, a national newspaper for prisoners, which tells us that NOMS is to be scrapped after three years at a cost of 2.6 billion? Is there any prospect of getting an update from the Lord Chancellor when he makes his speech?

Nick Herbert: I am grateful to my hon. Friend. Perhaps the Lord Chancellor will answer that question when he replies to our motion. It is widely believed that NOMS, having been set up at a cost of billions of pounds, is to be scrapped. The effective shelving of CNOMISthe IT system that underpins NOMSwhich the Government said was essential to secure end-to-end offender management, means that NOMS cannot operate properly.

David Hanson: rose

Nick Herbert: If the Minister is about to confirm that NOMS will remain in place, I shall be grateful.

David Hanson: I shall be grateful if the hon. Gentleman will tell us on what basis he asserts that CNOMIS is to be scrapped [ Interruption. ] The hon. Gentleman has just mentioned CNOMISthe computer system. On what basis did he make his allegation?

Nick Herbert: The Minister misheard me. I said that CNOMIS was shelved and that is the case.

David Hanson: On what basis does the hon. Gentleman make that allegation? Can he give me evidence? The system is not being shelved, as he should know if he is a responsible Front-Bench spokesman.

Nick Herbert: I am astonished by the Minister's intervention. Back in August, although the Government did not condescend to update the House on the matter, the Minister announced a moratorium because there had been a serious cost overrun and it was felt that CNOMIS would not deliver. An internal memo in the probation service made it clear that CNOMIS had effectively been shelved. What is more, an internal memo on the reconfiguration of the Ministry of Justice conceded that one of the optionsthe preferred optionfor internally splitting the Ministry will, in effect, mean the demise of NOMS. If none of those things is the case, the Government have an opportunity properly to update the House, but they have signally failed to do so.
	I agree that we need a debate on these matters; both inside and outside the prison and probation services there is much concern about the NOMS system and its inadequacies. There is huge concern that the Government are failing to deliver the key objective of end-to-end offender management. If the Minister wants to update us, I hope he will do so, but so far all we have heard is that these matters will be attended to in the Carter review. I hope there will be no attempt to smuggle out the review over Christmas, and I should be grateful if the Lord Chancellor gave us an indication of when he intends to publish the report.
	Last week, the Minister said:
	Lord Carter of Coles is undertaking a review of prisons that will look at options both for increasing supply of prison places and for reducing demand for them.[ Official Report, 26 November 2007; Vol. 468, c. 91W.]
	How exactly does one reduce the demand for prison places? The Conservatives think that one does so by reducing crime; the Government believe that one does so by giving criminals a break.

Ann Cryer: What about restorative justice? It is reducing reoffending rates in Toronto. Is the hon. Gentleman going to talk about that?

Nick Herbert: Yes. I am grateful for the hon. Lady's intervention and I will be happy to talk about restorative justice in a moment.
	How exactly does one reduce the demand for prison places? The Government have shortened prison sentences by introducing automatic release at the halfway point. They have transferred unsuitable prisoners early to open prisons. They have released more than 4,000 prisoners on tags, who have committed more than 7,000 crimes, including more than 1,000 violent offences. On Friday, according to the current trend, we expect the 10,000th prisoner to be released early on to the streets. One prisoner is let out of jail early every 20 minutes.

Humfrey Malins: Another way to reduce the demand on prisons would be to focus much more heavily on getting young peopleyoung criminalsoff drugs and into residential rehabilitation. The more we reduce dependence on drugs, the less we will have drug-fuelled crime, which is so bad at the moment.

Nick Herbert: I strongly agree with my hon. Friend, who, as a recorder, speaks with great personal knowledge and with a great interest in these matters. My right hon. Friend the shadow Home Secretary proposes that we move from drug treatment orders, which have a high failure rate, towards secure drug treatment centres and abstinence-based programmes. We have also proposed that there should be specialised, secure drugs treatment units so that we can get offenders off drugs when they are imprisoned. Unless we are able to do that, I do not believe that we will tackle the problem of drugs in our prisons, which is now endemic. The Minister of State, the right hon. Member for Delyn (Mr. Hanson), said last week that not only do drugs exist in prisons, but prisoners are ending up on drugs while they are in prison. Surely that cannot be acceptable in a secure environment.

John Mann: Can the hon. Gentleman give an example of a country where the system that he proposes is in place and working?

Nick Herbert: If the hon. Gentleman reads the excellent report from the social justice commission, by my right hon. Friend the Member for Chingford and Woodford Green (Mr. Duncan Smith), he will find lots of examples of extremely successful drugs treatment programmes. I agree: we should look at international experience.

John Mann: I suspect that I have read the document more thoroughly than most in the House and I cannot see a single example of anywhere in the world that uses the system that the hon. Gentleman proposes. I repeat my question: can he give a single example of any country in the world that uses the system he proposes?

Nick Herbert: As I said, the hon. Gentleman will find those examples in the report from the social justice commission of my right hon. Friend the Member for Chingford and Woodford Green. It is a counsel of despair to suggest that it is not possible to introduce specialised treatment centres that will get offenders off drugseither as an alternative to failed drug treatment orders or when offenders are sentenced to custody. That is exactly the kind of issue that my party and the commission set up by my right hon. Friend seek to look at. Both of them will consider how we can improve treatment for offenders who are on drugs.

John Mann: rose

Nick Herbert: I have given way to the hon. Gentleman twice already, so I am not going to do so again.

David Hanson: Will the hon. Gentleman confirm that in 1996-97 spending on drug treatment in prisons was 7.2 million and that in 2007-08 it was 79 million? That represents a 997 per cent. increase during the 10 years of our Government.

Nick Herbert: That is a typical response from the Government, who think that quoting a spending figure makes everything all right. The Minister of State admitted in a written answer published this week that offenders are getting on drugs while in prison. He should know as well as anyone else that prisons are awash with drugs, and that the current systems are simply inadequate to deal with that, both in terms of security and in terms of the treatment programmes being offered to offenders. One of the reasons for that is serious prison overcrowding. As I pointed out in a speech on Monday, spending on such programmes is a tiny proportion of the overall prisons budget. It is simply no answer to say, We have increased spending, so the Government are entirely happy with everything that is going on. Frankly, that is a complacent response.

David Howarth: Does the hon. Gentleman not think that there might be a contradiction in saying that more people should be put in prison, but that people get on to drugs in prison? Surely the example that he was looking for when he failed to answer the question asked by the hon. Member for Bassetlaw (John Mann) is that of the community court in Brooklyn, New York, where the whole object is to get people off drugs without putting them in prison.

Nick Herbert: First, there are successful examples of drugs courts in this country[Hon. Members: Where?] Hon. Members should know about the drugs court run by Judge Philips; it is a successful pilot, and it could be extended. I do not think that there is a contradiction in what I said. First, we argue for earlier intervention before offenders get into prison, with a treatment centre alternative to the drug treatment order programmes, which are failing. Secondly, if people are imprisoned, the most serious drugs offenders should be treated in units that are separate from conventional prisons. I do not believe that there is a contradiction, contrary to what the hon. Member for Cambridge (David Howarth) says. I will go on to argue that it is simply not acceptable to suggest that because prisons are overcrowded we should empty the prisons. That is what concerns me about the Government's position.

Nick Hurd: Does my hon. Friend agree that one of the most unacceptable statistics underpinning the overcrowding debate is that 15 per cent. of the prison population are foreign nationals who have abused the hospitality of this country and exhausted their right to its future hospitality?

Nick Herbert: Of course I agree with my hon. Friend. When the Government talk about prison overcrowding, one of the issues to which they should attend is the growth in the population of foreign national prisoners, whom the Prime Minister said he would remove. Nevertheless, only 4,000 will be removed this yeara small proportion of the total population. That places enormous additional pressure on our system, and it is now resulting in the creation of dedicated prisons for foreign national prisoners. If there is a group of prisoners that we could all agree should be removed from prison, it is surely foreign national prisoners, who could be returned to their country of origin, as the Prime Minister promised.
	The Government want to reduce demand by preventing the courts from sending people to jail. The Criminal Justice and Immigration Bill proposes removing the right of magistrates to impose suspended sentences, even though suspended sentences are usually given out by magistrates to those who have received every other possible disposal. As one magistrate said,
	How are we supposed to sentence the sixth-time driving while disqualified, or the third-time drink driver? Common Assault is the usual charge in Domestic Violence cases, and that too is summary-only. Take away the deterrence and what do we have?
	The same Bill also plans to restrict to 28 days, without exception or discretion, the time that an offender has to serve in prison after being recalled for breach of his conditions. The Magistrates Association has described that proposal as a licence to re-offend. The Government want to restrict the open-ended indeterminate sentences for public protection that Tony Blair paraded as a badge of honour. We know what the Government are up to. Legislation has already been prepared for Northern Ireland to implement the new rules on indeterminate sentences, whereby judges may give an indeterminate sentence only where the offence would have carried a fixed-term sentence of four or more years. As the Lord Chancellor confirmed this week, they want to reduce demand by
	linking resources to the setting of the sentencing framework.
	If, by that, the Government mean preventing the courts from passing sentences if there is insufficient prison capacity, it would represent a profound shift in criminal justice policy, and it would be profoundly wrong. An offender could be sent to jail one month, but someone committing precisely the same offence a month later could escape a custodial sentence, simply because the Government had failed to provide enough prison cells. It would result in great inequity in the operation of the criminal justice system. The effect of Parliament's decisions on the sentencing framework must be understood, because there are resource implications. The Government should be given a formal, independent warning before they pass ever more criminal justice legislation. They should be required to ensure that there is prison capacity to deal with the new offences that they have createdsomething that has not happened under the successive criminal justice Bills that they have introduced.
	That is entirely different from proposing that sentences should be limited by the resources made available by the Government after the framework is set. That is the fundamental difference in approach between the Government and the Opposition. They believe that sentences should be watered down to fit a limited number of prison places; we believe that sentences should fit the crime, not prison capacity.

Jack Straw: I have followed the hon. Gentleman's argument carefully. Does he therefore propose that the resources for prison places should be unlimited?

Nick Herbert: There is no need for resources for prison places to be unlimited. The Lord Chancellor knows the prison projections perfectly well, and the issue is whether he will meet the projected demand. He is 4,000 places short. No one has suggested that there should be unlimited resources to meet unlimited demand other than the Lord Chancellor, who produces ever more fanciful suggestions that somehow we will move to US-levels of incarceration, with 400,000 offenders being locked up. That is simply nonsense. The Government's own projection shows that by 2012 prison numbers will be 4,000 higher on the median projection than the number of prison places that they have provided. The question is whether they will meet that demand or not, and whether they will adjust the sentencing framework to try to shift prisoners out of the jails to which they would otherwise be sent.
	The Government have effectively accepted the latter option: they will weaken sentencing rather than send to jail people whom we would prefer to sentence to jail. That is the choice they will offer the country at the next election, and it is a choice on which we are happy to fight that election. The Government believe that sentences should be watered down to fit a limited number of prison places. We believe that sentences should fit the crime, not prison capacity.
	The Lord Chancellor has another idea to reduce the demand on prisons. Last week, he said that for people serving prison sentences of less than 12 months,
	community sentences will, in many cases, be a better alternative.
	That is an interesting proposal, because last summer, he told The Andrew Marr Show:
	I wish it were possible to deal with criminals outside prison. But most people who end up in prison go there because community punishments have failed.
	Prison is largely reserved for serious, violent and persistent offenders. Contrary to popular myth, our jails simply do not contain vast numbers of non-violent, first-time offenders doing time for licence fee evasion or summary motoring offences. The Lord Chancellor himself said last month that the
	bulk of the additional prisoners
	in jail over the past decade were
	more violent and serious offenders.
	The majority of offenders serve sentences of six months or less. Reducing further the number of short-term prisonersthose serving less than six monthswould mean weakening 23,000 sentences, or nearly two thirds of all custodial sentences.

John Mann: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

Nick Herbert: No, I will not.
	Community sentences cannot be used as an alternative to prison if they are not robust. The Government's latest wheeze is community paybackunpaid work for offenders. The former Home Secretary, the right hon. Member for Norwich, South (Mr. Clarke) said that it was a
	powerful, effective and tough punishment.
	However, four out of 10 unpaid work requirements for male offenders are not completed. The attendance rate is no better than 60 per cent. In other words, this so-called tough punishment is optional for offenders. That is no punishment at allit is a farce, and it cannot be a substitute for a custodial sentence in any criminal justice system that has the interests of victims at its heart. At least in prison offenders have to be there 24/7 as part of their sentence unless, of course, they have been moved to an open prison. Attendance there is optional, too. They could just abscond, as they do from open prisons in my constituency. They could even do so in their own car, which the Government allow them to have while in an open prison serving their sentence.
	The previous Home Secretary, the right hon. Member for Airdrie and Shotts (John Reid), promised high visibility community payback, with offenders wearing fluorescent jackets. What happened to that idea? One report claimed that the scheme had foundered after probation staff warned that it might compromise the health and safety of offenders. So much for high visibility, tough community sentences.
	The Government's flagship intensive supervision and surveillance programme is officially described as
	the most rigorous non-custodial intervention available for young offenders
	with
	unprecedented levels of community-based surveillance,
	yet the programme has a failure rate of almost 90 per cent.
	A leaked memo revealed that in May, the former Home Secretary, the right hon. Member for Airdrie and Shotts
	said that the financial situation would not allow for the building of new prisons, so thought was needed on other alternatives.
	The Home Secretary would consider community sentences if they were seen to be tough by the community. A strong handling strategy would be needed.
	So that is what it is all aboutno money for prisons, just spin to persuade the public that community sentences will do as an alternative. No money, yet Government incompetence has wasted billions of pounds on national programmes when the money could have been invested in prison accommodation and rehabilitation.
	Since last October at least 29 million has been spent on Operation Safeguard to use police cells for emergency prison accommodationenough to build a jail for more than 250 prisoners. The use of every court cell is more expensive than a superior room at the Ritz. The prison ship Weare was bought by the Home Office for 3.7 million and sold off at a loss, and another one is expected to be purchased. Perhaps the Government will confirm that. If the Government want to reduce demand for prisons, why do they not focus on the 11,000 foreign nationals who are in custody and make up almost one in seven of the entire prison population?
	We desperately need a new start to get offenders off drugs, to get them on work and education programmes, to help the mentally ill in prison, to unlock the development potential of our oldest and worst Victorian jails so that we can build new, smaller units, and to drive down reoffending, which costs the criminal justice system alone 11 billion a year. The Government's approach to prisons is bankrupt. Their big idea this year was to let 25,000 prisoners out of jail early. Their next big idea is to give even more criminals a break by watering down sentencing.
	The Government's first duty is to protect the public, and that requires them to provide adequate prison capacity. They have failed in that duty, and they should step aside for a Government who have the vision and competence to manage the prison estate properly.

Jack Straw: I beg to move, To leave out from House to the end of the Question, and to add instead thereof:
	'welcomes the Government's record which since 1997 has brought more offences to justice leading to a 32 per cent. reduction in overall crime and a 31 per cent. reduction in violent crime according to the British Crime Survey; welcomes the fact that the most violent and dangerous offenders are sent to prison for longer; also welcomes increased prison capacity by over 20,000 places and the commitment to building a further 9,500 prison places, of which 8,500 will be delivered by 2012; recognises that the Government has dramatically reduced the number of escapes and absconds since 1997; notes the increase in prison funding by 37 per cent. in real terms and probation service funding by 72 per cent., including a tenfold increase in funding for drug treatment in prison; recognises the improved links between custody and the community through end to end offender management and other measures; notes the introduction of a flexible and tough new community order which provides a real alternative to custody for less serious offenders; recognises the great strides made in improving the culture within prisons though the Decency Agenda; and further notes the reduction of the overall reoffending rate for prison and community sentences by 5.8 per cent.'.
	I express my usual appreciation to the Opposition for laying on the debate, which gives us another opportunity to compare and contrast the Government's excellent penal policy with the shambles of what passes for an Opposition policy.
	I have been in the House for a couple of years, and I have noticed that various devices can be used to avoid answering difficult interventions.  [Interruption.] The hon. and learned Member for Harborough (Mr. Garnier) asks whether this is an after-dinner speech. I wish it was. The answer from the hon. Member for Arundel and South Downs (Nick Herbert) to almost every difficult intervention was that we should have patience and wait till the end of the speech. We waited till the end of the speech and, sadly, did not get the answer to many of them.

John Mann: I do not know whether my right hon. Friend can provide the information that I was seeking: how many secure residential rehabilitation places would be provided by the Conservative party and what would the total cost be? I have studied the documents, but I cannot find a number, a definition or a cost. I wonder whether he can help.

Jack Straw: Our Department has excellent researchers, but I am afraid that I have not got details of the costs. I suspect that developing examples of overseas comparisons will turn out to be difficult, but my staff will do their best. I shall then ensure that the information is placed in the Library for the better education of the Opposition and to provide my hon. Friend with the information.
	The hon. Gentleman made an interesting speech to the Policy Exchange on Monday, and I am grateful to him for providing a just abridged version this afternoon. When I came to this post in June, I echoed Lord Falconer in saying that I hoped that there could be a vibrant public debate on prisons. He made his comments as he announced the establishment of a review of penal policy to be led by Lord Carter of Coles. Within the next few weeks I will be publishing that review to Parliament. I promise the hon. Gentleman and the House that there will be an oral statement in this House.
	Lord Carter's report is likely to be comprehensive and far-reaching, but I am not sure that he will be quite as extravagant as the hon. Gentleman has been recently. For those who missed his speech, I shall quote from it. He said:
	Jeremy Bentham, John Howard, Elizabeth Frythese were the most progressive thinkers of their day. All of them were pioneers in the field of prison reform.
	That is true, but in  The Sunday Telegraph he said:
	Our mission is to break the cycle of reoffending by redeveloping the prison estate in the most radical shake-up for two centuries.
	I was hoping that the hon. Gentleman's speech would provide further and better particulars of this radical shake-up. I was not asleep during his speech, far from it [Interruption.] I invite the Whip to remember that he gets his salary in order to remain silent. Almost nothing in the speech indicated that this would be the most radical shake-up for two days, still less for two centuries.
	I also say to the hon. Gentleman that wrapping himself in the mantle of Elizabeth Fry is one thing, but to cite Jeremy Bentham is another. After all, he said:
	All punishment is mischief: all punishment in itself is evil.
	I assume that that is now Conservative party policy. That Benthamite view of punishment might have informed the approach of the Conservative Front-Bench team, which, in Committee, signed a Liberal Democrat amendment proposing that the punishment of the offender should be removed from the criteria for determining sentences for under-18s. They then got cold feet about whether or not punishment ought to be one of those criteria and abstained during the vote.

Edward Garnier: I know that the Lord High Chancellorthe Secretary of Stateeven devoid of his robes, enjoys a good turn. He must apply his mind to the  Hansard record of that particular Committee debate if he is to be taken seriously. We do our best to take him seriously but it is difficult to do so when he makes that type of point. As the hon. Member for Somerton and Frome (Mr. Heath) will confirm, the debate that we had was not the one that the Secretary of State would like to portray it as. It was a serious debate about the nature and purpose of sentencing. If he wishes to misdescribe it in the way that he does, he is abusing this House and the intelligence of its Members.

Jack Straw: The hon. and learned Gentleman protests too much. My right hon. Friend the Minister of State, Ministry of Justice will quote from  Hansard when he sums up, so we shall see.
	An effective policy on prisons must be part of a comprehensive approach to tackling crime, and our record on both has been good. The hon. Member for Arundel and South Downs scarcely mentioned the crime figures in his Policy Exchange speech or in his speech this afternoon. I am not surprised, because crime doubled under the Conservatives, whereas under our Government it has fallen by a third. We have the best record of any post-war Government.
	The Conservatives also attack us for using a few hundred police cells to manage the prison population. The hon. Gentleman omitted to say, however, that the Conservative Administration used police cells year after yearand not a few hundred. In 1982, they used 3,500 police cells, and such was their incompetence that even 10 years later, in 1992, after numerous riots in prisons and indiscipline of a kind that we have not, thank God, had since 1997, they peaked again at 1,800.
	As for early release, yes, we regret the fact that we have had to use end of custody licence releases to release short-term prisoners 18 days earlier than they would be otherwise, but I remind the hon. Gentleman that in 1987, 3,500 prisoners were released virtually overnight as a result of the then Home Secretary's concern about the rising prison populationit was much lower than it is todaywhich the then Government had taken no steps whatever to deal with.
	Why is there pressure on the prisons estate? It is principally because of the effectiveness of our investment in the criminal justice system, with an extra 14,000 police officers and a toughening up of criminal law and, crucially, court procedure, better to favour victims and their communities. That has led in turn to more serious and persistent offenders being convicted and then sentenced to prison for longer terms. We have not had that much help from Opposition Members, who have been absent from the Lobby to vote for these measures, as much as they have been in favour of them.

Jim Devine: I asked how many prisons the Conservatives were going to build and at what cost. Does my right hon. Friend have any indicative cost of setting up a prison?

Jack Straw: I do indeed. We have already announced plans and we have others under consideration. The average running cost per prisoner for one year is 37,000 and the average cost of building a prison place is 150,000.
	More offences than ever before are being brought to justice1.4 million last year, up 41 per cent. from even five years ago. Sixty per cent. more violent and dangerous offenders are in prison now than when we came to office, and they are staying there for considerably longer. Meanwhile, the enforcement of sentences has improved considerably, with the number of people being sent back to prison for breach of their licence up from a measly 300 in 1997 to 5,200 today.

Jeremy Wright: Many of the offenders the Lord Chancellor is describing will have received indeterminate sentences of imprisonment for public protection. Does he accept that in many ways those sentences contribute to the prison overcrowding problem? As he knows, it is necessary for offenders serving them to complete courses to demonstrate their suitability for release. As he also knows, those courses are not available in every prison, and transfers to prisons where they are available sometimes take a very long time. That means that people are incarcerated for longer than expected and longer even than the court that sentenced them intended. Does he accept that that is a problem? If so, did the Government consider it when instituting those sentences, and what is to be done about it now?

Jack Straw: I acknowledge that there is an issue. When I gave evidence to the Constitutional Affairs Committee in early October, I discussed openly the question of IPP prisoners who are sentenced to short or very short tariffs. The whole House agreed that the indefinite preventive sentence should be available for medium and long-term prisoners who meet the appropriate categories. Having looked at the  Hansard reports of the debates on the Criminal Justice Act 2003, it is clear that that was what was anticipated by all Members. As it has turned out, the sentence has not only been used for that category of prisoner but for some prisoners who have been sentenced for very short determinate tariffs, the shortest being 28 days but several being for a period of less than a year. That must be taken into consideration. I readily acknowledge that the problems that the hon. Gentleman mentions have been exacerbated by the pressure on numbers, but that would exist in any event because of the effect of sentences on very short-term prisoners.
	Let me come to the centrepiece of the speech by the hon. Member for Arundel and South Downshis claim that we have not taken into account forecasts of increases in prison population. We have. Any forecasts are inevitably just that, and vulnerable to predictions of sentencing and custody rates or, for example, unforeseen events such as prison flooding, which happened in Gloucester.
	Let us consider the prison population for the summer of this year, which was 80,600, and look back at the projections of it over the previous seven years. The hon. Gentleman quoted very selectively on this. We see that there were predictions in 2002 and 2003 of a high endand, in two cases, a low endshowing that the prison population would exceed the current level. The range of projections for this year during that seven-year period was 30,000. The projections produced in January 2005 gave a range of 76,000 to 82,000; in July 2005 it was 76,000 to 84,000; and in July 2006 it ranged from 78,000 to where we were in the summer. Projections cannot be decisions, as the hon. Gentleman would discover in the unlikely event of him ever being in my place. They have to be a basis for judgment and then Ministers have to decide.
	It is palpably incorrect to suggest that there has not been an increase in the prison population. There has been a year-by-year increase. It was 65,000 in 1998. Then it stabilised, and went up to 66,000 in 2001. It was 71,000 in 2002, 74,000 in 2003, 76,000 in 2005 and 81,000 this year. My right hon. Friend the Prime Minister, when he was Chancellor of the Exchequer, ensured that money was provided for that. He has also ensured an additional 9,500 places, which are currently in the programme or being built. Under this comprehensive spending review there will be 8,500 places, of which 1,600 are being provided in the current calendar year.

Mark Pritchard: In an earlier intervention on my hon. Friend the Member for Arundel and South Downs, my hon. Friend the Member for Ruislip-Northwood (Mr. Hurd) referred to the number of foreign prisoners, which currently stands at 15 per cent. of the total. Does the Secretary of State agree that if we dealt with that issue more efficiently and effectively, several thousand prison places would be released in a very short period? That would assist him in delivering what he says he is trying to deliver.

Jack Straw: Of course we wish to see the number of foreign national prisoners reduced. We are seeking to do that. However, if we are going to have a serious debate about prison policy, with the best will in the worldand the procedures and back-up for dealing with this matter have significantly improvedit is difficult to secure transfers in some cases. We have a large number of foreign national prisoners from Jamaica. We are working with the Jamaican Government to transfer those people back to Jamaica, but it is a relatively small country, which has been perfectly open about the fact that it is worried about having those nationals back. They ought to go back, but we cannot put them on a plane if it does not have landing rights at the other end.
	We have another large tranche of such prisoners from China. When I was Home Secretary, I had constant negotiations with the Chinese Government. We believe that they should meet their obligations to take those prisoners back, but they are often rather less ready to do so in practice than they may be in principle. We have another problem with Nigeria. I love that country, but anyone who has ever dealt with itit has a federal Government, 36 states and is slightly challenging in terms of its administrative standardswill know that it is extremely difficult to do so. Even if one can get the federal Government to agree to matters, it is then necessary to have them translated down to state level.
	We have good relations with Vietnam, for example, as we have with those other countries, but those four countries account for a significant proportion of foreign national prisoners. We are working very hard to reduce the number, but it is no good just pressing the button, They're foreignerswe should get rid of them.  [ Interruption. ] I do not think that that is the hon. Gentleman's approach. It is no good the Opposition saying that unless they can introduce serious proposals that can speed up the transfer of such prisoners faster than we are moving them at the moment. If there were a magic wand, I promise that I would use it. We all would. This is not a party issue. I promise the hon. Gentleman that all of us, from the Prime Minister downwards, are very anxious to see the maximum transfer of FNPs. The transfers have increased, but the numbers are still too high.

David Heath: I agree with the Secretary of State about foreigners held in prison. Is not the problem that many people confuse deporting foreign prisoners at the end of their sentenceat which the Government have been notably incompetentwith holding foreign prisoners till the completion of their sentence, for which, as the right hon. Gentleman says, few options are available?

Jack Straw: As my right hon. Friend the Minister said, the hon. Gentleman slightly spoiled his point with his remarks about foreign national prisoners whose sentence has expired. There are similar problemsthey are not the samewith both. With great respect, the hon. Gentleman should not pretend otherwise.
	None of us underestimates the pressure on the prison estate. Given that, we have done more than ever to tackle prisoners' needs for effective rehabilitationnot to do them a favour but to get reoffending rates down. We have increased spending on probation by 72 per cent. in real terms and made a reality of end-to-end offender management.
	We have increased investment in drug programmes tenfold, so that there has been a 64 per cent. reduction in drug abuse in prison. If the hon. Member for Arundel and South Downs claims that the Conservative party will promise at the next election that there will be no drugs in prison, I wish it luck because nobody will believe that.

Edward Garnier: That is an Aunt Sally argument.

Jack Straw: That was the whole burden of the contribution of the hon. Member for Arundel and South Downs on the subject. He suggested that drugs in prison were somehow our fault and that a Conservative Government would sort that out. When I became Home Secretary, the regime for checking and searching prison visitors was shambolic. We were left with that. The ingress of drugs into prisons was dreadful. It is almost impossible wholly to eliminate that, but we have significantly reduced the amount of drugs in prisons and greatly expanded the number of drug-free wings. We have also put experts in charge of providing health care, education and training in prisons, establishing more than 100 mental health teams and employing more than 350 mental health professionals who are now NHS professionals, not Prison Service health workers, to work directly with prisoners.
	Despite everything, the Prison Service has met its targets. There has never been greater investment or more done to improve the nature of the prison regime so that it can be a constructive force for change and provide genuine rehabilitation. Today, conditions are far more decent and humane. Prisoners are treated with dignity, better to ensure that they treat others with respect.
	Of course, there are concerns. One is prisoner suicides. Last year, suicide rates were at their lowest since 1996. However, this year, there has regrettably been an increase. In 2000, I set a target, as Home Secretary, to reduce self-inflicted deaths in the context of a national suicide prevention strategy. Most years, that target, which is based not on total numbers but on the number of deaths per 100,000 offenders, has been met. I do not believe that this year's increase is a direct result of overcrowding. Frankly, the matter is far more complicated. The sheer volume of people sent to prison, many of whom are among the most vulnerable in society, has greatly increased in the past decade. Although we have greatly improved the care availableand sharing cells reduces the suicide riskwe are conscious, as are all prison staff, of the need to improve the way in which we continually check on potential suicide and do everything that we can to avoid it.
	The way in which we have transformed prison has contributed to our central aim in penal policy: to cut reoffending thus cutting crime. We heard again the Opposition claim that reoffending rates have soared. That is not the case. I am happy to lay on a short seminar for the hon. Gentleman about reoffending rates. However, when considering reoffending, one has to examine the nature of the prison population, which has become more serious because we are locking up more serious and persistent offenders. Evidence from 2004 shows that the two-year reconviction data for prisoners released from custody in that year provides an indication of a significant positive treatment impact on actual rather than predicted reconviction rates. For prisoners serving more than four years, the improvement is 13.4 per cent.; for those serving two to four years, the improvement is 10 per cent., and for those serving one to two years, the improvement is 6.3 per cent. We have to do more, but that is an indication of how our overall effort is working. One thing that the hon. Gentleman cannot gainsayindeed, he failed even to mention itis the fact that crime has gone down, on the Conservatives' measure, by at least a third.
	I was in opposition for 18 years and sat on the Bench opposite for most of that time. I have therefore become something of a world expert on the issue. I fully understand the pressures on Opposition Front-Bench spokesmen to produce yet another initiative to impress their colleagues and get a line in the media, but there is always a danger with that rather breathless approach, which is that the Opposition may be playing catch-up, simply recycling what the Government have already done. So, a review of prison policy was announced last summer by the hon. Gentleman with bells and whistles, two or three months after we had announced a review of prison policy. He is now talking about new prisons for old, which is in fact a key part of Lord Carter's review.
	May I also offer a comradely warning to the hon. Gentleman about that part of the review being conducted by the hon. and learned Member for Harborough (Mr. Garnier)? If what the hon. and learned Gentleman has already said is anything to go by, the review could lead to embarrassing proposals under which prisons are emptied, rather than expanded. We all enjoyed the part in a previous speech by the hon. and learned Gentleman when he said that he had been to prison, saying that it was a voyage of discovery, and adding that prison [ Interruption. ] It was not a joke; it was a speech by the hon. and learned Gentleman. He should not mock his own speeches. He added that prisons do not work and said that many inmates
	might more economically and effectively be managed outside prison without presenting a danger to the public.
	We look forward to the Conservatives' proposals, because apparently they are now going to propose that the prison population should come down and not go up. We know that there are some serious argumentsFraser Nelson of  The Spectator introduced us to the arguments inside the Conservative partyand that must be one area.
	Let us come to the issue of resources. The hon. Gentleman has gone on record as saying that he accepts that we do not end up in the same situation as the United States. I am glad about that. He then said in the House that no one was suggesting unlimited resources. That is also useful for him to have said and absorbed. The issue of resources must be taken into account. How resources should be best taken into account is one of the improvements in the system that Lord Carter is considering. Meanwhile, I do not believe that anyone will disagree with the Lord Chief Justice, Lord Phillips, who said:
	The scale of sentences is now largely determined by Parliament. Where within that scale the facts of a particular offence fall is the judge's task. Parliament should, when altering that scale, have regard to the resource implications of the changes that are proposed.

Edward Garnier: On the subject of Lord Carter, will the right hon. Gentleman confirm that Lord Carter has completed his review, that it is on the Secretary of State's desk, that it has been seen by the Lord Chief Justice and Sir Igor Judge, the deputy Lord Chief Justice, and that it is simply awaiting the Secretary of State's signature for publication?

Jack Straw: There have certainly been extensive discussions with Sir Igor Judge and the Lord Chief Justice, and with me. I have not yet received the final version of the review report. I have already told the House that there will be an oral statement, and of course I shall make myself available for questions on that statement, as I always do. The Select Committee on Justice has already asked to interrogate me once the report is made available and might even ask the business managers if we can have a debate on it, so there is no dubiety about that.
	If I may return [ Interruption. ]

Madam Deputy Speaker: Order. Could we have one debate please, rather than two or three?

Jack Straw: To return to the point, I quoted Lord Phillips, the Lord Chief Justice, and I do not think that anyone would disagree with what he said. Indeed, the hon. Member for Arundel and South Downs, the shadow Lord High Chancellor of Great Britain, said:
	The lord chief justice is quite right to say that when the sentencing framework is set, the impact on the prison population must be properly taken into account.
	The backdrop to this debate is a country where crime is down a third since 1997, on the measures set out in the British crime survey, which was established by the Conservative party. Our penal policy is part of that success. This drop in crime represents 5 million fewer victims now than a decade ago.
	Let me give the House two further sets of facts. First, as the House of Commons Library has shown, between 1945 and 1997, crime consistently rose faster under Conservative Administrations than ever it did under Labour Administrations. Secondly, it is under this Government since 1997, alone among any Administration since the war, that crime on all measures has fallen. That is our record. We stand by it, we are proud of it and I commend the amendment to the House.

David Heath: It must be a considerable relief to the Lord Chancellor, considering the events in other parts of his departmental responsibilities, to return to the chronic failure of the Prison Service. It is a safe haven of sorts for him. The decision to hold this debate today was timely, and I commend the hon. Member for Arundel and South Downs (Nick Herbert) for having chosen this subject.
	We need to keep reminding ourselves that our prison system is in crisis. The House needs to be aware of that and to look at the potential solutions. We should not be remotely proud, as a nation, of the fact that we appear to have the unique social conditions, unique criminality and unique culpability that result in our having a higher proportion of citizens in custody than any comparable country. That is a signifier of failure in the system, not of success. A good system would reduce crime, the number of criminals and the number of people in our prisons. The fact is, however, that we are seeing an ever-increasing number of people held in custody.
	Beyond that failure is the failure to have a prison estate that is capable of holding the prisoners who are sentenced. The overcrowding and conditions, and the nonsense of police cells being used and of prisoners who have been sentenced by the courts being carted around the country in an effort to try to find a place are all an indictment of how the system is working. The fact that it is beyond the scope of the prison system to house the present prison population presents a problem: it makes prisons more and more ineffective at performing anything other than the basic function of holding someone in custody to prevent them from committing a crime. It makes them ineffective at providing prisoners with any education, training and skills opportunities, or any other useful activity. It also results in a lack of effective rehabilitation. The consequence is a high rate of recidivism; people constantly reoffend on release from prison. That means that the enormous amount of money that we are investing in our penal system is having no effect. When people are released from prison, what do they do? They go out and commit another crime, and the public are once again put at risk.
	We can add to the waste of money incurred by putting people into prisons that do not work the even higher cost of putting them into police cells. That also has a detrimental effect on police effectiveness and efficiency, while offering no possibility of any educational or rehabilitative work, even if people want it. That can have even more serious consequences.
	There was a famous instance of people being sent around the great city of Liverpool in taxis delivering redundancy notices, but I think that it is nonsense that prisoners should be taken from one prison to another in taxis, simply to find a cell in which to hold them for the night. Yet we know that that is happening on a daily, and nightly, basis.

Robert Flello: Is the hon. Gentleman suggesting that prisons around the country should have surplus places just in case somebody needs to be moved into them, or does he disagree with the idea that prisons should be managed in a way that maximises their use? I am not quite sure where he is coming from when he talks about surplus places to accommodate people in prison.

David Heath: That is a novel ideathat we should have a just-in-time prison delivery system in which there is no spare capacity anywhere and wait for one person to be pushed out the back door before we put the next prisoner in through the front door. The hon. Gentleman really needs to think through the implications of his comments, as it is very difficult to understand exactly what he is suggesting.
	One of the effects of the kaleidoscopic movement of prisoners around the country is that there is no continuity of care and effective rehabilitative prison work. That has all sorts of consequences, including the prison system's inability not only properly to discourage reoffending, but to provide basic continuity of health care, particularly mental health care, to which I shall return in a few moments.
	We all acknowledgeat least I hope we all dothe problem of the prison estate's capacity to deal with prisoner numbers. Where I part company with the hon. Member for Arundel and South Downs, however, is on the competition of incompetence involved in saying that the answer is to build more and more places for more and more prisoners, so that failure begets failure and we spend more and more money on a system that does not provide effective rehabilitation. I simply do not believe that building more and more conventional prison spaces is the answer to the problem. That approach is simplistic and ineffective, and in the long term it can only exacerbate the problem.
	Does that mean that I would refuse to build any new prisons at all? No, because I share the view of the hon. Member for Arundel and South Downs that we could manage the prison estate more effectively. There is far too much real estate in the form of old Victorian prison blocks, taking us back to the panopticon, Jeremy Bentham's great invention in prison design. We do not have the right prisons in the right places, and if we were to dispose of some of that prison estate, we could reinvest in smaller units more suited to task and in the right places. One of the objectives of the Prison Service, particularly for lower-risk prisoners, should be to provide prisons where the prisoners come from.
	One of the objectives of planning policy in guidance and elsewhere should be for the services provided to a community to include sufficient prison capacity to deal with the offenders likely to originate from that community, particularly in respect of large-scale developments. People should reflect on that point more, particularly in the south-east, which is currently underprovided for its prison population.

Ann Cryer: Is the hon. Gentleman suggesting that there should be a prison in every constituency, which is what his line of argument would amount to?

David Heath: I do not think that we need to go that far. There is a prison on the fringe of my constituency, so perhaps I have done my bit. No, we do not need 639 prisons; what we do need are enough regional prisons in each part of the country to deal with the prison population likely to derive from each region. If the hon. Lady looked at the present disposal of prisons across the country, she would find that there is a mismatch. There are far too many inner-city hulks of prisons that are often at too long a distance from the people using them. That applies particularly to prisoners with relatively short sentences for whom visiting and maintaining contact with families needs to be a very high priority if we are to secure a proper rehabilitative effect. The distance makes visiting that more difficult and it is ineffective in terms of simple unit costs. I think that we could do a better job, which is my answer to her intervention.
	Women's prisons are one particular aspect, and we hope that the Government will respond positively to the Corston review, as one of the main issues is the patchy provision of women's prisons and the fact that they are often in the wrong places. Many women are serving relatively short sentences, and many have family commitments. Imprisonment away from their families can be extremely deleterious to those families, and according to all the evidence, to those women's mental health. I think that they would be much better served by smaller units scattered around the country and closer to where they live. There are other issues in connection with the number of women in prison who do not pose a risk to the community, but I will not go into them now.

Ian Lucas: I am listening to the hon. Gentleman's speech with great interest. I understand the logic of the proposal for more prisons spread over different areas, but has he assessed the cost of such units in comparison with that of slightly larger regional prisons? It seems to me that the staffing implications of requirements for specialist care would be very major.

David Heath: The honest answer is that the cost would vary according to the class of prison. The cost might well be greater in the highest security prisons, with a high staff-to-prisoner ratio, while the smaller, low-dependency units might be more cost-effective. An enormous amount of capital is tied up in some of our older prisons, however. Once it was released, the prison estate would benefit from a substantial capital receipt and the capacity would be available. The building of new prisons costs much less than the capital value of the estate.

Chris Ruane: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

David Heath: A good many people want to speak in the debate, but I will give way to the hon. Gentleman briefly.

Chris Ruane: Given the high price of land in the south of England, would the prisons that the hon. Gentleman would like to locate there be at the more expensive end of the spectrum?

David Heath: The south-east has higher land values than the north-east. That is a fact, and I cannot get away from it. However, we have some inner-city properties on the prison estate that would be worth many millions of pounds if their value could be realised, and on the outer fringes there are a number of greenfield sites that could be used for new prison build.  [Interruption.] Please let us not be

Madam Deputy Speaker: Order. Can the normal rules of debate be applied, please?

David Heath: I certainly hope that we do not descend into the futility of the argument of the hon. Member for Vale of Clwyd (Chris Ruane).
	Once we have divested ourselves of some of the assets and rebuilt some conventional prisons, we shall be in desperate need of more secure mental health provision. We know that that is a major problem in our prison system: 90 per cent. of prisoners show some symptoms of mental illness. I do not suppose that all those prisoners require secure mental health provision, but I note that one in 10 is functionally psychotic. It strikes me as extraordinary that when the prison population contains so many people who need mental health provision in our conventional prisons there are only 1,150 secure mental health places in Ashworth, Broadmoor and Rampton. Surely a sane way of dealing with that issue is to build more secure mental health provision rather than more conventional prisons. The same applies to drugs rehabilitation centres.

John Mann: On that point

David Heath: I thought it inevitable that the hon. Gentleman would intervene on that point.

John Mann: I thank the hon. Gentleman for his generosity in giving way. The Conservative party earlier today changed its policy from one of residential rehabilitation to secure residential rehabilitation, which would probably double the cost per centre. Will he confirm his policy of drugs rehabilitation centres? Will they be secure or not? Has he costed them? Can he give an example of any other country in the world where such a policy works?

David Heath: On the latter point, the United Kingdom is one; we have 2,500 secure drug rehabilitation places. Unfortunately, they are very often not filled because of resourcing issues, but that is part of the disposal at the moment. There are many people within our prison system who have a serious drugs problem. We know that drugs are a major motor of acquisitive crime. I am not talking about the three quarters of male prisoners who have used drugs in the 12 months or so before they enter the prison estate, and neither am I talking about the 10,000 drug offenders. I am talking about serious drug users who need rehabilitation within the prisons estate, but are at the moment held in conventional prisons. Those prisons are not the right places for such people.

Humfrey Malins: I always listen to the hon. Gentleman with great care, but I think that he may be mistaken in saying that there are 2,500 secure residential rehab places in the country. I think there are 119 English residential drug rehab units with a total of 2,530 beds; that is in my pamphlet, Crackpot. But those beds are not secure, which is the problem; anyone can come in and out when they want.

David Heath: I am very grateful to the hon. Gentleman for correcting something I said that was misinterpreted. Certainly that was the point I was trying to make.
	The third category of people in our prison system who should not be are those serving short-term sentences. I make this point strongly. There is very clear evidence that recidivism among those serving sentences of three months or less is almost 100 per cent; there is more than 90 per cent. recidivism among young males in that category. We are using prison spaces for a system that is almost completely and utterly useless in preventing crime. My belief is that there are better disposals, and here I must differ from the hon. Member for Arundel and South Downs, who appears to think that community sentencing could never do anything positive and should be shunned at every opportunity in place of real punishment in prison. Prison does not work for short-term sentences. It does not deter, rehabilitate or stop people reoffending. What on earth is the point of using expensive prison places when there are more effective disposals elsewhere in effective community sentences?
	This is my last point. If we want effective community sentencingI do and I think the Government dothat can and will reduce the number of people in custody, we have to have an effective probation service. At the moment we have a probation service that is being brought to its knees by the demands put on it and the funding that it is not being given. That is why the National Association of Probation Officers is lobbying us and holding a rally in this House and why its members are so concerned about what is being done to the probation service.

David Hanson: The NAPO lobby is organising its approach on the basis of a flat cash settlement. I am proposingI have written to chief probation offers to make this offerbetween 2 and 3 per cent. for next year. The figures on which NAPO is lobbying are not correct.

David Heath: I have seen the letter from the right hon. Gentleman and I accept that he has written in those terms. The resource that he is putting into the probation service is not adequate, however, to meet the demands that we are placing on the service. The reality is that probation offices throughout the country are facing increased work load, reduced staff numbers, unfilled vacancies and training places that are not being filled. We cannot deliver effective community sentencing without the people who are expert in providing probation services.
	I say plainly that one cannot both cut costs in the probation service and deliver community sentencing as an alternative to prison. Community sentencing costs money to be effective. I think that it works, and I have evidence to support that view. However, it is a scandalous waste of human resource and energy to send a young lad into prison to watch television all day every day, perhaps acquire a drug habit and come out as a confirmed criminal, instead of setting him the task of clearing up graffiti in his community or doing other work that restores what he has broken or destroyed. That is also an ineffective way to deal with offenders.
	It is easy to talk tough about prison, but it is much more difficult to be effective. I have argued, and will continue to argue, for a penal policy that is effective in cutting crime and reducing reoffending. The prison system is failing on those scores, and one of the reasons is that we simply have too many people in our prisons.

Several hon. Members: rose

Madam Deputy Speaker: Order. We have limited time left for the debate, so I suggest that hon. Members limit their contribution to six or seven minutes so that they more may be successful in catching my eye.

Ian Lucas: I am pleased to follow the hon. Member for Somerton and Frome (Mr. Heath). I am also pleased that the debate has become more civilised in tone after we had high volume from the hon. Member for Arundel and South Downs (Nick Herbert), but not much sense. Having listened to his speech, I am still unclear about whether it is the Conservatives' policy to have more people in prison or fewer.

Chris Ruane: Does my hon. Friend see a theme emerging? Yesterday, we asked about Conservative housing policy, and they said that they did not want any targets for house building. That has been repeated today, and they have not given any targets for prison places.

Ian Lucas: If my hon. Friend will allow, and in view of the time constraints, I shall stick to the debate at hand.
	I would like to see fewer people in prison, and that should be the aim of a civilised criminal justice system. The problem is that Governments do not send people to prison: courts do. One of the central difficulties of penal policy is a constant tension between Government and the courts. It is probably magistrates courts rather than Crown courts that send young and other offenders to prison for short sentences.
	I am a former solicitor and I have practised in the criminal courts, albeit some time ago, and in my experience courts are reluctant to send people to prison, and Opposition Members who have more recent experience accept that. So why are more people going to prison?

Edward Garnier: The Government's policy on sentencing is to send more people to prison for longer. The Government have, for example, created some 3,500 new offences. That is why more people have ended up in prison.

Ian Lucas: With respect, I am talking about short sentences and individuals who are given short sentences and who may never have been in prison before. Some of those people must be in the category of offenders who have been brought to justice by this Government's penal policy but might not have been brought to justice in the past. It is for that reason that those people have gone into prison for the first time.
	Certainly, some individuals are in prison for longer and for more serious matters. I welcome that: such people are a danger to the public, and it is right and proper that they should be in prison for a considerable period. I welcome a policy that means that they are not released until they pose no threat.
	However, given the constraints on time in the debate, I shall concentrate on the need to focus on those who are sent to prison for short sentences. I always like to see the good work that the probation service does with restorative justice in my constituency. Some excellent local projects have clearly imposed serious burdens on the people involved. The projects have been a real punishment and I welcome that, but it is clear that my constituents have no perception of restorative justice. They do not appreciate the burdens that it imposes on those who commit offences, and their perception is that criminals can be dealt with effectively only if they are sent to prison.
	I have held meetings with my constituents to explore the nature of the sentences imposed for specific serious offences, and it has been made clear to me that people have no appreciation of how long such sentences can be. The fact that they believe that inmates serve shorter sentences than they really do shows that the criminal justice system is a lot tougher than most people think. If the Government are to deliver an effective criminal justice system, it is crucial that they focus attention on educating the public about it. People must be made aware that community sentences can be effective, and that they can impose substantial burdens on those punished by the courts.

Dawn Butler: Does my hon. Friend agree that Government policy should focus also on tackling the causes of crime, through initiatives such as Extended Schools, the Youth Opportunity Fund and the Youth Capital Fund? In my constituency, the Not Another Drop campaign has caused crime to fall by 12 per cent. Does he accept that we should adopt that approach more widely?

Ian Lucas: My hon. Friend mentions another crucial area. As I said, I worked in the criminal courts in the late 1980s and early 1990s, when the vast majority of my clients were unemployed. Thankfully, unemployment has fallen over the past decade, and there is no doubt that that has had a substantial impact on the commission of crime. All the programmes to which she referred need to be continued and developed, and I especially welcome the commitment to youth services that the Government have evinced in the past few months. I know that my hon. Friend is very interested in such services, as they play a crucial role in our efforts to reduce crime and lower the prison population.
	There is ongoing discussion in north Wales about having a prison there. At the moment, the prison population from the area is usually held at the Altcourse prison in Liverpool. That is a long way away from north-west Wales and Anglesey, for example, and I agree with the hon. Member for Somerton and Frome that, if we are to have any sort of end-to-end criminal justice system, prisons must be located near the geographical areas in which prisoners live. They must also recognise the cultural distinctions in communities, and that is why I support the principle of a prison in north Wales.

Julie Morgan: Does my hon. Friend agree that a small unit in north Wales for women prisoners would be much more effective, as Baroness Corston recommended in her report? Traditional women's prisons or a women's wing in a prison are a backwards step.

Ian Lucas: I was interested in the comments about small prisons made by the hon. Member for Somerton and Frome, and I certainly agree that it would be sensible to take the line suggested by my hon. Friend. In principle, I would support a prison in north Wales, hosted in the community, and I hope that an announcement will be made in the Carter review, and that discussions will take place early in the new year.
	In view of the time, I shall conclude my comments. We need to conduct a sensible and temperate debate on the subject. I hope that tone will continue.

Humfrey Malins: I shall try to be brief. As always, I begin by declaring an interest as a Crown Court recorder and a part-time district judge.
	A few years ago, I visited a young offender institution where I spoke to a young man aged 20. I asked, What are you doing here? He replied, I'm in for four months for driving while disqualified. It's the second time I've been disqualified. My goodness, I said, Are you a terrible driver? No, he said, I'm a brilliant driverI've never had an accident. Then why are you in here for driving while disqualified? I asked. Well, he said,  I haven't got a licence. I've never had a licence. Why? I asked; and he replied, I've never passed the theory test, because I can't read or write. In a debate such as this, we have no real opportunity for the thoughtful discussions that most Members want about prisons. That is a pity, because there are good ideas on both sides of the House about penal reform, but these debates are set-piece occasions whenperhapswe do not think quite enough.
	I want to say a few words about the subject of education in prisons, on which I have concentrated for several years. My young man could not read or write, so he was in prison. That is a crying shame. I have visited many young offender institutions over the past few years and I try to work out what the young men and womenmostly young menare doing with their lives. How much time do they spend locked up in their cells? How much time is spent on serious education, and how much time do they have for playing sport? Those are good things in the young offender estate. I am sorry to say that for many years the situation in young offender institutions has been worrying, which is a criticism of us all, in all parties.
	I asked in a written question about the steps taken to increase the time spent by young offenders in the youth prison estate outside their cells and on playing team sports and educational activity. The answer was interesting:
	Young people in young offender institution accommodation commissioned by the Youth Justice Board must be given 25 hours learning per week and spend less than 14 hours per day locked in their room.[ Official Report, 21 November 2007; Vol. 467, c. 985W.]
	We might think that that was clear, but a careful study of what happens in practice illustrates that far too much time is spent locked up.
	In July, I asked about the amount of time per day that young offenders spend locked up in their cells. In Reading young offender institution, the average time spent in cells is 17.1 hours a day. The figure for Rochester is 15.7 hours. In many of the young offender institutions, including Castington, people spend more than 15 hours a day locked up in a cell, and in Deerbolt it is 17 hours. That is not good news at all.
	What about education? I told the House about the young man who was in prison because he could not pass his theory test. How many hours of education are people getting? They are not getting the 25 hours that they are meant to receive. I asked a question some time ago about the average number of hours spent on education per week. In Aylesbury and Glen Parva, it is only six hours a week. In Reading, it is eight hours a week. That is not long for a young person to spend on proper education at a young persons institution.

Mark Oaten: There is an additional concern: even people who do start a course in prison find it virtually impossible when they leave prison to complete that course and get the qualification.

Humfrey Malins: That is absolutely right. The hon. Gentleman is interested in these matters and I respect his expertise, because we have been debating against each other for some years. He rightly points to the need for people to be able to continue with their education and get the qualification. Somebody who has a jobsomebody who is educatedis less likely to go back to prison or a young offender institution than somebody who does not.
	Let us concentrate on spending more time on education in young offender institutions. More time should be spent out of the cells. More time should also be spent on playing sportteam sport. I am old-fashioned. In the young offender institutions where there are plenty of team sports, there is a better chance of the young men being constructive when they come out.
	What about drugs? The other day I asked what percentage of persons in young offender institutions are drug addicts. The answer is 76 per cent. Three quarters are drug addicts. That is a terrible state of affairs. The country is awash with drugs. I do not blame the Government for that. There is Afghanistan, Colombia and the rest of the world. The world is changing. Drugs are a terrible problem among young people. Believe me, while sentencing in the courts, it is pathetic to see nice young boys and girls, aged nine, 10, 11 or 12, who have started on skunk, and moved on through solvents to heroin and crack cocaine. Their lives are ruined by it and they end up in a young offender institution.
	My final plea is this: all of us in politics must focus on trying to help young peoplewho are victims as often as notoff hard drugs. We must focus on ways of doing that. Residential rehab is cheaper and more effective than prison. We are talking about one of the worst problems facing young people today. If today's debate has any result, I hope that it is that all of us in the House will try to use our brains as best we can to come up with better ideas and policies to look after young men in young offender institutions, both in terms of their education, their future and their propensity for drugs, which is so deeply damaging.

Julie Morgan: In the short time available, I shall concentrate on the issue of women in prison, which has already been mentioned by the hon. Member for Somerton and Frome (Mr. Heath), and on how we might create a better system for women offenders. It is important that we both decrease instances of reoffending among women and make sure that women in prison, and their families, do not suffer unnecessarily.
	The first thing to do is to look at the profile of the women who are imprisoned. It is fair to say that of the 4,000-plus women who are in prison, most are classified as very vulnerable and the majority are there for non-violent offences. The most common offences are theft and the handling of stolen goods. It is important to remember that eight in 10 are there for non-violent crimes. Some 70 per cent. of women in prison have mental health problems, 37 per cent. have attempted suicide, nearly two thirds have drug problems, one in three has been sexually abused, and more than half have suffered domestic violence. Some 20 per cent. were in the care system as children, compared to 2 per cent. of the general population. That is a grim picture.
	It is disturbing that the number of women in prison has almost tripled in the past 10 years, even though the kinds of offences for which they are sentenced have not changed, on the whole. Due to the efforts of successive Prison Ministers to keep the women's prison population down as much as possible, the population has stabilised in the past three years at between 4,000 and 4,500 people. What happens to women when they are released? Prison does not work for women: 65 per cent. of them reoffend. Nearly a third who lived in rented accommodation lost their homes. That is clearly not good for the women, and not good for society, because the root causes of women's offending are not being addressed in prison.
	Of course, prison does not just affect the women who are imprisoned. About two thirds of women in prison have dependent children. More than 17,000 children are separated from their mothers because of imprisonment. When a mother is sent to prison, only 5 per cent. of children remain in the family home. It is important to remember the misery caused to many children as a result of women going to prison. By way of contrast, when men go to prison, the majority of children stay in the family home. We cannot minimise the distress that is caused to the children in that case, but they do remain in the family home.
	Women are frequently held more than 50 miles from their home, so it is often difficult to visit and to keep in contact, which is vital. So much more needs to be done for women prisoners who have not committed violent crimes, and who are not a risk to society, and that is why I particularly welcome the Corston report, published earlier this year. It is important that we try to do something radical with women prisoners, because although they are only a small number of those in the prison population as a whole, we can tackle that number. I think that we can actually make a difference.
	I strongly support Baroness Corston's recommendation that we move from traditional-style prisons for women to smaller unitssome of them securemuch nearer women's families and communities. Those units can address all the issues related to women's offending, including the crime. They have offended against society, so we have to address the offending and there must be an element of punishment, but we also need to think of the other, wider issues and try to deal with them. We have models for such an approach in the Asha centre in Worcester, and the 218 centre in Glasgow, which address the punishment of women offenders for the crimes that they commit, but also look at the other factors. We also need programmes that consider women's mental healtha subject that has been mentioned a lot todaydrug and alcohol abuse services, and support for victims of domestic abuse. The aim should be to get women out of the cycle of offending, to try to keep families together, and to provide services that will help us to gain those ends.
	My hon. Friend the Member for Wrexham (Ian Lucas) mentioned prisons in Wales. There is no women's prison in Wales, and that causes the additional problem of women's families having to travel outside Wales. In south Wales, that generally means going to Bristol. In north Wales, too, it means going over the border to England. I feel strongly that we need a facility in Wales, particularly in south Wales, but we do not want a traditional prison for women. There are not enough women offenders in Wales to fill such a unit. We want the sort of unit recommended in Baroness Corston's report. I strongly hope that that will be considered for my area of south Wales.
	I am delighted that the National Offender Management Service is setting up a demonstrator project to service Wales in Cardiff. It aims to turn around the lives of women offenders and women who are at risk of reoffending. NOMS reckons that there are about 779 women offenders in Cardiff and the surrounding areas. It is setting up the skeleton of a service that could address women's offending, and all the problems affecting their lives. Work on a core unit in south Wales, which is similar to the units proposed in Baroness Corston's report, has already begun. I hope that we can continue to develop such a unit in Wales and address the issue of women's offending.
	An encouraging ICM survey on Monday showed that the vast majority of people do not think that women should be sent to prison for non-violent offences. Some 86 per cent. of those surveyed said that they would prefer women to be given a community alternative to prison, so there is no public support for the view that women should be in prison for non-violent offences. The public are compassionate, and they understand the huge problems that prison sentences create for families and communities. They understand that prison is not effective for women, so I hope that the Government's policy, informed by the Corston report and the response to it, will be a positive one.

David Taylor: According to my hon. Friend's figures, a third of women prisoners do not have a child dependant with them in prison, so why should they be treated differently from men who have committed non-violent offences? Opinion polls and surveys would not be as sympathetic to men, but are there not men in prison who would benefit from a similar approach?

Julie Morgan: I agree that some men would benefit from a similar approach, but the evidence on women is clear and much stronger, and we should start with women.

Crispin Blunt: I represent a constituency that includes two prisonsHigh Down and Downviewwhich over the past 10 years have provided repeated examples of the failure of Government policies to be other than reactive to predictable wider trends. They have enjoyed, if that is the right word, the consequences of an inept and ill-thought-out policy.
	I have already put on record the shambles of the reroling of Downview some years ago from a men's to a women's prison at two weeks' notice to the staff. High Down prison will contribute 360 extra places to the prison estate by mid-February, and a new wing means that 178 places are coming online now. Given the difficulty of recruiting prison staff, nearly 30 per cent. of the required prison officers will be detached from duty elsewhere, with a consequent risk for prisoner-prison officer relationships.
	Another example of the inept way in which those matters are plannedthat is not necessarily the right wordis the new educational facility, which will come on-stream after the new blocks are built. For an indefinite period, the facilities required to enable the rehabilitation and training of offenders in prison will not be available, even though there will be a 50 per cent. increase in the prison population.
	To develop a point made by my hon. Friend the Member for Arundel and South Downs (Nick Herbert), the prison was established to hold 660 prisoners. Its operational capacity is 747, but it is increasing by 10 a day as the new block is filled. There are 98 men living in triple cells who should be in double cells. There is a proposal to put bunks into the single cells in the new block, which were designed to take ligature points out of the cell and reduce the risk to prisoners, and an assessment is under way of whether the new cells can be turned into double cells. That is the scale of the crisis in that prison in my constituency.
	The crisis that has engulfed prisons is cruel not only to prisoners but stupid, because of the consequences for the rest of us. The overcrowding crisis is a fundamental problem and a consequence of the wider malaise in the criminal justice system.
	Three aspects have contributed to the systemic failure, one of which is sentencing. It is clear that the Government's obsession with sentences has been damaging. A custodial sentence has two elementsa prison sentence, the primary purpose of which is punishment and the protection of society, and a period of probation on licence, which should primarily provide prisoners with the opportunity for rehabilitation. That is not to say that rehabilitation should not start in prisonit should. However, the increase in sentence length under the Government, forcing judges to pass longer sentences, and the creation of thousands of new criminal offences, must have contributed to the overcrowding and the collapse of much serious rehabilitation work inside.
	The failure properly to focus on rehabilitation means that far too many offenders are re-imprisoned while on probation. We already have some of the longest sentences in Europe, and more and more judges are handing out indeterminate sentences. The new system of imprisonment for public protection has exacerbated the situation. Britain is home to more prisoners on indeterminate sentences than the whole of the rest of Europe put together. I do not regard that as a mark of success.
	Sadly, the probation service has been consistently undermined by the Government. On 11 June this year the service celebrated its 100th anniversary in a special service in Westminster Abbey. The Bishop of Selby, Bishop to HM Prisons, acknowledged
	the constant change and reorganisation . . . the struggle to get enough resources for a task which although hugely cost effective compared with custodial sentences seems to get a smaller share of the budget.
	It was for some a eulogy on the end of the national probation service as we know it.
	Many prisoners now see the function of the probation service not as rehabilitation, but as re-imprisonment. Those sent back to prison include individuals arriving moments late for employment or carrying items that cannot reasonably be prohibited. In a case personally known to me, an offender was accused of using his electronic diary to access the internet, despite the fact that the machine had no such function. On that basis, he was re-imprisoned. We are told of people being re-imprisoned without being told why. The appeal process through the Parole Board is lengthy, and the Parole Board is itself a subsidiary of the Home Office.
	The failure to rehabilitate and the propensity for punishment provoke anger and frustration among the prisoner population. Those emotions are prominent likely causes of re-offending. A prisoner in Belmarsh recently wrote:
	I consider there to be no real support or encouragement from probation, or indeed anything to do with effective rehabilitation, and rather than allow them to recall me on ridiculous grounds I believe the remainder of my sentence will be better utilised in prison.
	That is a common view in prison and a damning indictment of a failed policy. The solution is straightforward: support those keen to rehabilitate, and address re-imprisonment for ridiculous reasons that have much more to do with risk avoidance than with justice. With 10,000 prisoners being recalled the situation needs to be addressed urgently.
	Finally, let us consider the role of the Parole Board in prison overcrowding. According to the High Court, the reason lies in the lack of independence for the Parole Board. Many who should be released to probation for rehabilitation are not released, and the Parole Board's recommendations, such as proposals to move those serving life sentences into more open conditions, are ignored. It is perhaps typical of the controlling tendency of the Government that instead of granting the Parole Board the independence that it needs to function, they are instead launching an appeal against the High Court's judgment.
	Allowing our judges to judge, focusing probation on rehabilitation and curbing the Home Office's draconian powers, and ensuring a truly independent Parole Board would help address the current crisis. Meanwhile, our prison service is swamped, unable to do its job of rehabilitation, and morale is at an all-time low. The Government say that their policy is focused on public protection, but all they are doing is putting the public at risk through overcrowded prisons and a failure to rehabilitate thousands of offenders, nurturing one of the highest re-offending rates in the world and breeding thousands of angry, bitter prisoners who have been unjustly and inhumanely treated.

Khalid Mahmood: I was a little disappointed when the hon. Member for Arundel and South Downs (Nick Herbert) opened the debate and started talking about the prison population. One thing that he left out of his speech was the contribution made by our police force to ensuring that more people are taken in for investigation, arrested, taken to court and sentenced. A huge investment has been made by our Government in the police force and community support officers. In my constituency, Perry Barr in Birmingham, Handsworth, Lozells and Aston, which had record levels of crime, now have one of the lowest crime rates in Birmingham and across the midlands.
	The hon. Gentleman refused to take interventions from my hon. Friend the Member for Bassetlaw (John Mann), who has huge knowledge and understanding [Interruption.] I say to hon. Members who wish to intervene on me that I have only a little time available to me, and I want to make a couple of points and then allow other hon. Members to speak. The work done by my hon. Friend has given him a huge understanding about drug rehabilitation.
	If hon. Members want to examine these serious issues, they should visit Winson Green prison in Birmingham, where significant work has been done on getting prisoners off drugs and on to substitute drugs. Approaches such as rehousing them, reintegrating them into the community and getting Jobcentre Plus teams into prisons to speak to them about work opportunities when they come out of prison have been examined. All that work has been done in places such as Winson Green, and the Government have put huge resources into it. The venture taken by Winson Green is wholly positive, and much interesting work has been done.
	The hon. Member for Arundel and South Downs also refused to mention anything about restorative justice. A huge amount of work has been done on that, particularly in Liverpool. I believe that the hon. Member for Somerton and Frome (Mr. Heath) mentioned the Red Hook project, which is a fine example. I have had the opportunity to visit Liverpool, where work has been done and restorative justice has paid off. A full-time district judge is in charge of that system, and keeping people away from prison has worked quite effectively. A community court has also been secured in Lozells and Handsworth for my constituency. It started only this month and it has been a huge success. I have been campaigning for such a court in my area for the past two years. A huge amount of work has been done.
	Many hon. Members have mentioned education. I shall limit my remarks because of the shortage of time, but I should mention Matthew Boulton college in Birmingham, which has won a contract for Prison Service education. It has done a huge amount of work to get prisoners back into education.
	People must recognise the considerable work that has been done in all the fields that I have mentioned. Hon. Members sometimes come here to make speeches purely to knock the Government, but that is not a positive approach. We need to examine all the positive things that are being done and then continue the work. The hon. Member for Woking (Mr. Malins), who is not in his place, made sensible arguments on this point. We should address such arguments rather than just listen to point-scoring from the hon. Member for Arundel and South Downs.

Shailesh Vara: In essence, the prison system is in crisis. As each prisoner costs the taxpayer 49,000 per annum, it is proving to be a rather expensive crisis. Given that the Prime Minister's speech to the Labour party conference, which itemised his priorities, did not mention prisons or prisoners, it is clear that the trend of neglect will continue.
	With a record number of prisoners, it is no good the Government boasting that they have provided an additional 20,000 prison places when some of that has been achieved by doubling and trebling the usage of cells. Nor is it any good their boasting that they propose to build 9,500 more places by 2012, when they have guaranteed funding for only 500 of those places.
	The Government need seriously to consider the consequences of their decade of failure. There was a 64 per cent. rise in attacks on prison staff between 2000 and 2006, which was due in part to overcrowding. There has been a substantial increase in the number of prisoner-on-prisoner assaults444 per cent. between 1997 and 2006. The number of self-harm incidents has also increased by a staggering 1,500 per cent. in the same period. It is no wonder that the chief inspector of prisons, Ann Owers, drew a link between overcrowding and violence in prisons.
	As well as punishment, one of the aims and objectives of prison is to rehabilitate prisoners, but that is becoming increasingly difficult. For example, in Belmarsh prison just under 15 hours a week is spent in productive activity. That sort of environment certainly does not assist rehabilitation.
	As we have heard, prisons are rife with drugsa fact that was aptly confirmed in a written reply to my hon. Friend the Member for Shipley (Philip Davies) confirming that one in five prisoners admitted that their first experience of drugs was in prison.
	I am mindful that one other Member wishes to speak, so I will conclude by saying that the Government need to get their head out of the sand. So far, they have tried temporary measures such as the early release of 10,000 prisoners. Perhaps the Minister would like to enlighten us about what temporary really means. The tagging system has failed and there have been failures in all other measures. My advice to the Minister is that he should take on board the views of some of his colleagues in other Departments, who have been open to Conservative suggestions.

Elfyn Llwyd: In the four minutes that I have, I would like to make a couple of brief points.
	We have had prison overcrowding in every year since 1994. Part of the reason for the current crisis is the 50 per cent. breach rate of antisocial behaviour orders. Stringent breach rules have resulted in a rise in the number of breaches of more than 400 per cent. in four years, up to a monthly level of 1,200. Other reasons include increases in magistrates' sentencing powers and the use of public protection sentences. If I had time, I would have referred to the Carter report of 2003, which concluded:
	There is no convincing evidence that further increase in the use of custody would significantly reduce crime.
	In other words, crime is not dealt with by imprisonment, which does nothing for the average offender, for various reasons. Rehabilitation is not good, and there are overwhelming drug problems. Similarly, the previous Home Secretary, the right hon. Member for Norwich, South (Mr. Clarke) said:
	More than half of all crime in this country is committed by people who have been through the criminal justice system. Prison does not work in stopping reoffending.[ Official Report, 9 February 2006; Vol. 442, c. 1033.]
	So why do we continue to send people to prison?
	Let me pose this question to the Minister. Will the Government consider a new community penaltya period of supervision where the conditions of the order were not all imposed at the same time? That has been put to me by a serious panel of senior probation officers. The major problems are, first, drug and alcohol misuse, secondly, literacy and numeracy deficiencies, and thirdly, lack of a path to employment. It is not possible to deal with all three at the same time, because people who are in the depths of drug or alcohol misuse cannot deal rationally with the second and third problems. The sentence could be for 18 months, with six months in the first phase and phased-in second and third phases. That would ultimately be cost-effective, although it presupposes investment in the probation service. I have always believed in the probation service. Far too many people in prisonI would venture to suggest up to 25 per cent.should, strictly speaking, not be there. We could do without sending people to prison if we were to look creatively at community penalties. If I may, I would like to meet the Minister to discuss the idea of the phased community penalty, which is a good idea that might well work. Perhaps he will agree to that when he winds up.
	I am pleased to have been able to speak for these few minutes. Often, the best fish that a fisherman would ever have caught is the one that got away. Likewise, alas, the speech that I had prepared would probably have been my best speech, which is why I was unable to deliver it.

Edward Garnier: I begin by commiserating with the hon. Member for Meirionnydd Nant Conwy (Mr. Llwyd). He always has interesting things to say about criminal justice issues, and if he had more time, he would have had more of value to say. I particularly want to commend him for his ideait is one I have thought of myself, if I may say soconcerning the sequential requirements under community sentencing. As he rightly says, many of the people on community sentences are not always able to organise their lives in a sensible way, and we end up with too many breaches as a consequence. I think that the Minister would be sensible to consider that idea further.
	I do not have long, so I probably will not faithfully reproduce the contributions made by right hon. and hon. Members from all parties. I notice that the Secretary of State is not here; he did not rise to the occasion, which is a pity because those who spoke after him have done so. I have no doubt that the Minister of State will produce a better speech than his political master. He has done his best to make some interesting contributions to the question of prison overcrowding; I have listened to him with interest in the Committee considering the Criminal Justice and Immigration Bill, which we have been toiling through during the past six weeks or so. I look forward to what the Minister has to say having real purpose. It seems to me that prisons should be prisons with a purpose. If we cannot provide purposeful prisons, we are wasting our time and the public's money, we are abusing victims and we are not doing offenders any good.
	A number of broad themes came out of the debate, and my hon. Friend the Member for Arundel and South Downs (Nick Herbert) highlighted those in our motion. Like my hon. Friend the Member for Woking (Mr. Malins), I must confess to being a recorder. I send people to prison and give them community sentences. I watch the carousel of offenders coming before the criminal court in London and wonder why this Government do what they do. They seem to have little understanding about why what is happening. As the shadow Minister dealing with prison matters since my right hon. Friend the Member for Witney (Mr. Cameron) appointed me to the post in December 2005, I have visited 30 adult prisonsthose accommodating men and womenand I have visited young offender institutions and secure training centres. In each of those establishments I have met some dedicated and wonderful people, but all of them are working in dreadful, overcrowded prisons. Overcrowding is the crux. It is impossible to deliver sensible, humane and decent conditions in prison, for the inmates or for those who work there as officers and staff, in such grossly overcrowded conditions.
	As our motion says, there are now 81,547 in prison. We are simply warehousing those people; we are not giving them the effective rehabilitation that they need if they are to come out of prison as responsible, law-abiding citizens. It is one thing to incarcerate people to keep them off the streets, and to prevent them from reoffendingthat is a perfectly legitimate aim of sentencing. However, if that is all we do, and we release them through the back door so that they go back on to the streets, as illiterate and affected by substance abuse as when they went in, it is hardly surprising that they reoffend in the industrial quantities that they do. Of all adult prisoners released, 66 per cent. reoffend within two years, and the figure for young offenders is worseabout 75 per cent. If the Government think that spending 50,000 a year on accommodating every adult prisoner, between 70,000 and 90,000 a year on every young offender and about 150,000 a year on every teenage prisoners under 18, is good for the prisoners and the public when reoffending takes place at such a vast rate, we inhabit different planets. The reoffending rate is far too high and will not be tackled until the Government get to grips with overcrowding.
	The Government claimthe Secretary of State did so again this eveningthat they have built and provided many additional prison places. It's the way he tells 'em. The prison population has increased from 60,000 to 81,500, but the accommodation has not increased to meet that. As my hon. Friend the Member for Reigate (Mr. Blunt) said when he referred to the new block in one of the prisons in his constituency, it is already planned to put bunks into single cells so that two people can go into one-person cells. One of the unintended consequences of getting rid of slopping out over the past 20 years is that we are now in the revolting position whereby two or three men are in one cell, essentially living in a lavatory. They cannot go to the lavatory in privacy. That is a fact of the hidden world of the modern prison system. Not only do they have to go to the lavatory in front of their cell mates, but they have to eat their meals in those lavatories. Those appalling conditions prevail under the Government's management of our prison system. That does not lead to better rehabilitation and inculcation of responsibility into offenders whom we release on to the streets.
	Approximately 2 per cent.probably 1 per cent.of the prison population never leave prison. The vast majority go to prison and come out. If we put people in prison illiterate and on drugs, and allow them to maintain that state of affairs, it is hardly surprising that they reoffend when they leave prison. One cannot get a job if one cannot read. One needs a reading age of 14 or older to get a job. Even an unskilled job requires some reading ability. Approximately 65 to 70 per cent. of the prison population has a reading age of under 11. The Government appear to want to do little about that.
	Yes, the Government have increased the number of pounds that are spent on education. However, they think only of input, not output. It is no good, as a Government Back Bencher suggested in the debate, simply increasing spending on drug rehabilitation. The Government may well have increased the amount, but they have not increased the benefit to the public or to the prisoners.  [Interruption.] It is uncontroversial to say that there is no better place than prison to take drugs, pick up a drug habit and become a drug addict. If any Labour Members want to contradict me, I suggest that they visit as many prisons, young offender institutions and secure training centres as I have. They will soon learn different.
	The hon. Member for Wrexham (Ian Lucas) was right that there is a need to consider whether a prison or custodial accommodation should be providedfor men and women, as the hon. Member for Cardiff, North (Julie Morgan) saidin north Wales. It is not right that people should be taken a long way from their homes so that their families are broken up and children lose touch with their parents in prison. The hon. Gentleman and the hon. Lady may knowbut the Secretary of State may notthat 150,000 children who go to bed tonight have a parent in prison. Broken families lead to repeat crime. Failure to be visited by their families just once a year has a correlation with reoffending by those who are released from prison. I urge hon. Members to consider that carefully as we watch the train crash happening. We have been watching it for the past few years.
	Sadly, time does not permit me to give full credit to the speech of my hon. Friend the Member for Woking, who spoke with great knowledge and passion about education and drugs in prison. The average time spent on purposeful activity in our prisons is currently 3.6 hours a day. Given the time that prisoners are kept locked in doing nothing, cannot we get them to learn to read if they have 14, 15 or 16 hours in their cells alone? Cannot toe-by-toe schemes be spread more widely throughout the prison estate? Cannot we do something practical rather than simply allowing the Secretary of State to make a few feeble jokes about my being on a voyage of discovery? I have indeed been on a voyage of discovery. [Hon. Members: Oh!] Yes, I have been on a voyage of discovery, and the public and the Government would have benefited greatly if the Secretary of State had been on it with me. I do not say this with any sense of amusement or pleasure, but we currently have the blind leading the blind and it is the public who pay for it, in money and the huge rates of reoffending. Until the Government get their head round that, get a grip and really pull their socks up, I am afraid that we are in for worse.

David Hanson: We have had a productive debate. A lot of it was predictable, but in part it was also thoughtful. I pay tribute not only to my hon. Friends the Members for Birmingham, Perry Barr (Mr. Mahmood), for Wrexham (Ian Lucas) and for Cardiff, North (Julie Morgan) for their contributions, but to the hon. Members for Woking (Mr. Malins) and for Reigate (Mr. Blunt), although less so to the hon. Member for North-West Cambridgeshire (Mr. Vara), but he is entitled to make his political points.
	This has been a thoughtful debate, which has added to the need to look at some of the key issues. There are key issuesI share the view of the hon. Member for Woking on thisto do with numeracy, literacy, drug abuse, employment, providing people with accommodation post-prison, and rebuilding lives during prison, before prison when people enter the youth justice system and post-prison. There are real issues that we can address. There is even an element whereby, dare I say it, the hon. and learned Member for Harborough (Mr. Garnier) agrees deep down with some of the things that the Government are doing. Deep down, he knows that we are taking a positive approach and that we have matters in common on the way to tackle reoffending.
	I pay tribute not only to the staff in the Prison Service, but to the staff in the probation service, who do an excellent job.

Lindsay Hoyle: Is my right hon. Friend aware that I represent a constituency with one of the biggest prison populations? The morale of the Prison Officers Association at Wymott, one of the two prisons in my constituency, is at an all-time low, but the governor is unhelpful. We need to consider what we can do. Will my right hon. Friend intervene to see what the issues are, so that we can help get that prison back on track, as its numbers are going to be increased and the current dispute is not the right way to go?

David Hanson: If my hon. Friend wants to discuss the situation in Wymott, as well as general issues, I should be happy to meet him, because I know that he will share my wish to see an effective Prison Service and an effective probation service that is committed to reducing reoffending.
	We are having this debate against a background of reducing crime, and we must never forget that. Crime is down 32 per cent. over the past 10 years, burglary is down 55 per cent., vehicle theft is down 52 per cent., household offences are down 33 per cent. and all personal offences are down by 32 per cent. overall. I am not going to duck the fact [ Interruption. ] I am grateful for the intervention of the hon. Member for North-West Norfolk (Mr. Bellingham). If only he had been here throughout the debate, he could have listened to all the thoughtful contributions. There are still some clear challenges for us and for the Prison Service in preventing reoffending.
	My hon. Friend the Member for Cardiff, North mentioned the Corston report. There is much positive policy promoted by Baroness Corston. I hope that I will be able to respond to that shortly. We have already given the process a positive response and I look forward to responding to the report in detail, I hope very shortly.
	A number of hon. Members mentioned the Carter report, including my right hon. Friend the Lord Chancellor. Hon. Members will know that we have asked Lord Carter to assess the pace and scale of the current prison building programme, the management and efficiency of public sector prisons, the impact of recommendations for the prison estate on all parts of the criminal justice system, and the changes in the sentencing framework. As my right hon. Friend said, we expect Lord Carter to report shortly.
	We have a big building programme of more than 9,500 places. I should point out to the hon. Member for North-West Cambridgeshire that the funding is there for 8,500 of those 9,500 planned places.
	We also have a positive programme of examining not only prison building but the reduction of reoffending. It is on that point that I wish to concentrate now. My hon. Friends the Members for Wrexham and for Birmingham, Perry Barr and the hon. Members for Somerton and Frome (Mr. Heath) and for Woking have all put their finger on the key issues that we need to address. There is an element of support across the House for those issues.
	The Government have identified seven pathways that need to be addressed in order to prevent reoffending. They include accommodation, drug treatment, and educationthe hon. Member for Woking mentioned support for education and training. They also include finding a better way of linking employment opportunities outside prison with training opportunities in prison. My hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Perry Barr mentioned the scheme at Winson Green prison, which I happened to visit a few weeks ago, and the community justice scheme at Lozells in his constituency. Both are attempting to examine the key issues of employability, training and support for individuals. Self-evidently, there are three issues that are important to individuals in regard to the prevention of reoffending. They are employment, accommodation and support from family, friends and colleagues.
	I refer the hon. and learned Member for Harborough to a document that I produced yesterday on the consultation on reducing reoffending, which contains our designs for tackling the issues of accommodation, drugs, debt, family, employment, literacy and numeracy. As my hon. Friend the Member for Brent, South (Ms Butler) mentioned, we also need to look at the causes of crime before people even get into the criminal justice system. We have examined the work of the Youth Justice Board and I would like to tell the hon. Member for Woking that the Department for Children, Schools and Families is now working with my Department to examine what we need to do in regard to interventions on families, to young people identified as being a problem, to raising levels of literacy and numeracy and to supporting those key issues.
	There are several things that we can do in regard to the prison programme generally, and I believe that we will do them. They involve not only increasing prison capacity but making prisons effective in tackling some of the long-term issues that have been mentioned.

Colin Burgon: The Minister has mentioned investment in the service. Some of the key people in it are the members of the Prison Officers Association, who do excellent work in the two prisons in my constituency. Will he put on record his acknowledgement of their work? Will he also dismiss the story that appeared in  The Observeron 18 November, I thinkthat said that drastic cuts in the membership of the Prison Service were being considered?

David Hanson: I will certainly put on record my support for the work that the prison officers do. Like the hon. and learned Member for Harborough, I visit prisons almost every week, and I meet committed staff who are working hard in challenging and difficult circumstances, with some very challenging and difficult people, to ensure their rehabilitation and the protection of the public.
	My hon. Friend asked about future prison officer numbers. We are currently looking at the budget and we have yet to determine the budget for future years, but with an expanding prison programme, we need to take on more prison officers. We shall need to ensure that we have prison officers who are trained to the highest capacity and who can do their important job safely. We have a positive prison building programme and a positive programme for the prevention of reoffending. We also have positive views on the challenges facing the Prison Service.
	The real question for the Conservatives is whether they will support our agenda to tackle the causes of crime and social exclusion, and whether they will work with us to tackle some of the other issues that drive people into crime in the first place. Would they put forward the necessary resources to fund the prison building programme and to secure the necessary investment in the Prison Service? I very much doubt it, given their tax-cutting proposals.
	Judging by today's debate, there is unanimity on the Labour Benches, anddare I say it?a common theme between ourselves, the Liberal Front-Bench spokesman and some Conservative Members on how we need to tackle these issues, but there is still a dichotomy that the Conservatives need to face. On the one hand, the hon. Member for Arundel and South Downs and the right hon. Member for Haltemprice and Howden (David Davis) want to see more and more prisons being built, more and more people being put away and, in due course, more and more people being put in prison without any remission whatever. On the other hand, the thoughtful hon. and learned Member for Harborough wants to see rehabilitation, investment in training, education and support and all those other positive issues.
	I commend the Government's amendment to the House.

Patrick McLoughlin: rose in his place and claimed to move, That the Question be now put.
	 Question, That the Question be now put,  put and agreed to.

Question put accordingly, That the original words stand part of the Question:
	 The House divided: Ayes 156, Noes 356.

Question accordingly negatived.
	 Question, That the proposed words be there added,  put forthwith, pursuant to Standing Order No. 31 (Questions on amendments)
	 The House divided: Ayes 294, Noes 202.

Question accordingly agreed to.
	Mr. Deputy Speaker  forthwith declared the main Question, as amended, to be agreed to.
	 Resolved,
	That this House welcomes the Government's record which since 1997 has brought more offences to justice leading to a 32 per cent. reduction in overall crime and a 31 per cent. reduction in violent crime according to the British Crime Survey; welcomes the fact that the most violent and dangerous offenders are sent to prison for longer; also welcomes increased prison capacity by over 20,000 places and the commitment to building a further 9,500 prison places, of which 8,500 will be delivered by 2012; recognises that the Government has dramatically reduced the number of escapes and absconds since 1997; notes the increase in prison funding by 37 per cent. in real terms and probation service funding by 72 per cent., including a tenfold increase in funding for drug treatment in prison; recognises the improved links between custody and the community through end to end offender management and other measures; notes the introduction of a flexible and tough new community order which provides a real alternative to custody for less serious offenders; recognises the great strides made in improving the culture within prisons though the Decency Agenda; and further notes the reduction of the overall reoffending rate for prison and community sentences by 5.8 per cent.

SITTINGS OF THE HOUSE

Ordered,
	That, on Tuesday 18th December, the House shall meet at half past Eleven o'clock and references to specific times in the Standing Orders of this House shall apply as if that day were a Wednesday. [Mr. David.]

ADJOURNMENT (CHRISTMAS)

Motion made, and Question put forthwith, pursuant to Standing Order No. 25 (Periodic adjournments),
	That this House, at its rising on Tuesday 18th December 2007, do adjourn till Monday 7th January 2008. [Mr. David.]
	 Question agreed to.

PETITION

Planning and Development (Okehampton)

Geoffrey Cox: I have the honour to present the petition of 1,500 of the townspeople of Okehampton in my constituency. The petition has been collected by Mr. Mel Stride and an indefatigable band of helpers from all parties. It is their heartfelt conviction that their town is being expected to absorb massive housing development, amounting to many hundreds of new homes without adequate investment and planning for the schools, medical facilities, roads and other infrastructure to support them.
	The petition states:
	The Humble Petition of the people of Okehampton and its surrounding area,
	Sheweth
	That Okehampton is a market town that already suffers from significant traffic congestion and associated pollution, notes that there exists a high level of local demand for primary school places and local healthcare, and is concerned that the current infrastructure is overwhelmed.
	Wherefore your Petitioners pray that your honourable House impresses upon the Government and the Department for Communities and Local Government the acute strain on Okehampton's schools, hospital, and roads, and the need for any further development, particularly of housing, to be supported by adequate provision of new infrastructure, so that its problems are resolved, not exacerbated.
	And your Petitioners, as in duty bound, will ever pray, c.
	[P000048]

Bangladesh

Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House do now adjourn. [Mr. David.]

Jeremy Corbyn: I am pleased that we can have a short debate on the situation facing Bangladesh. As I have already explained to the Minister for the Middle East, I want to concentrate on two aspects of life in Bangladeshthe cyclone and the disasters that followed, and the current political situation in the country.
	It would not be right to make that part of my speech without first recognising the fact that there is a large Bangladeshi community in Britain, in London and in many other cities, and also recognising the incredible contribution of its members to our society and lifeespecially in the restaurant and garment industries. Through their hard work, they have sent large amounts of money home, which has played a major part in the development and improvement of Bangladeshi society. It should be on the record that members of that migrant community have come here to contribute, to work, to support each other and to become a positive force in our community.

Andrew Love: Like my hon. Friend, I have a large Bangladeshi community in my constituency. Does he agree that there is considerable concern in that community, and elsewhereI have heard concerns from across the Bangladeshi community in Londonabout the political situation in Bangladesh? People are looking to the British Government to do something to help. This debate is an ideal opportunity for the Minister to set out how he can help with the situation.

Jeremy Corbyn: That is absolutely right. That is the case with many people in the community whom I have met and worked closely with, including my good friend the former Islington councillor Talal Karim, who has helped a great deal with the preparations for this debate.
	Those of us who have followed Bengali politics over a long period recognise that the country is in a difficult position geographically on the globe. It has a population of 150 million, which is growing quite slowly. The increase is down to 1.5 per cent. a year. That is a credit to the country's development strategies. About 30 per cent. of the population live in urban areas. However, the population density, at 1,100 people per sq km, is among the highest in the world. Infant mortality rates have fallen to 54 per thousand live births and life expectancy is now 62.8 years. Although adult illiteracy has not been conquered yet, the literacy rate is up to 41 per cent. and is rising quite fast. So, there are signs that there is much to be pleased about when it comes to the improvements that are taking place in Bangladesh. Bangladesh is also an important trading partner with this country. Exports from Britain to Bangladesh and vice versa are growing fast, and therefore access to EU markets and so on is important. However, those are not the main points that I want to talk about today.
	Bangladesh achieved its independence in 1971, after the war in which the Mukti Bahini led a guerrilla force against the forces of the Pakistan Government in what was then East Pakistan. On independence, Bangladesh was keen to develop a secular constitution, a constitutional and democratic form of government, and a democratic way of life. It is importantI will come back to this later, and I am sure that the Minister will want to mention it as wellthat a secular constitution and secular politics are maintained in Bangladesh. I am sure that other Members who have a Bengali community in their constituency would agree.
	Before I go on to the politics, it is only right to talk about the current crisis facing the people of Bangladesh. Cyclone Sidr has probably already resulted in around 3,000 deaths. The figures beggar belief. Many estimates say the number of deaths could be as high as 10,000. Large numbers of peoplemany tens of thousandshave been made homeless. Roads and infrastructure have been destroyed. Large numbers of livestock are dead, many of them drowned, because of the cyclone. Tens of thousands of acres of cash crops have been destroyed.
	The immediate crisis is one of life and limb. The next crisis, following on quickly after that, is the shortage of drinking water. The next crisis is food. Then, after the immediate problems have been resolved, there is the task of rebuilding and of feeding the population. Bangladesh suffers periodically from floods, because it is low lying, on a river system, and liable to cyclones. We have to do all that we possibly can to help. Saudi Arabia has pledged help. The United Kingdom has already sent $5 million of aid, for which I thank the Secretary of State for International Development. The US is providing aid, as are neighbouring countries, including India. We have to recognise that these things happen from time to time in Bangladesh, and we have to do all that we can to support it as rapidly as possible.

John Battle: There was a cyclone in 1991 and in 1998. They happen periodically, and that may be the result of climate change. It is key that we not only provide emergency aid, but make sure that development agencies do not walk away from the longer-term development of Bangladesh when it is no longer in the headlines, few though those headlines have been.

Jeremy Corbyn: My right hon. Friend makes an important point. The current disaster is truly appalling, but the question is what happens afterwards. I will come back to that, if I may. I know that the Minister is from the Foreign Office, and therefore cannot be expected to speak on behalf of the Department for International Development, but perhaps he could pass on to DFID the concerns that some people have about too much of our aid being focused through official or quasi-official channels. There is an important role for local Bangladeshi non-governmental organisations and for the voluntary sector across the world. For example, today I received very useful briefings from Save the Children, and from the Disasters Emergency Committee on its work.
	As my right hon. Friend the Member for Leeds, West (John Battle) pointed out, because of Bangladesh's infrastructure problems, there are serious issues to do with inequality in the distribution of aid. A photographer, Ruhul Amin, is reported in  The Muslim News as saying that
	those who live beside the roads get more relief material than they need while those in far flung areas, especially offshore and remote islands, along with inaccessible villages, are not even getting the minimum...better coordination...of relief is just part of the problem.
	There is also the question of longer-term development and protection against cyclones and floods. I recall that after a previous flood in Bangladesh, the Secretary of State for International Development spoke, quite correctly, about the need for shelters and raised areas to which people could escape when floods come; those things are very important.
	I congratulate DFID on the excellent support and help that it has given, but we need to concentrate rapidly on developing a warning systemsuch systems are much better than they ever used to beand on a thorough reconstruction job, with properties that are to some extent cyclone-proof where that can be achieved, and refuges. A good emergency system is also needed, because Bangladesh does not have enough helicopters or other equipment to get aid to remote places. It has to plead with India, the United States and others to send that kind of equipment as quickly as possible. I would be grateful if the Minister could help us to some extent on those matters when he replies.
	I will be brief, so that the Minister has sufficient time to reply, but the second part of my speech concerns the political situation in Bangladesh. As I pointed out, Bangladesh achieved independence in 1971. We are still dealing with the effects of the division of British India in 1947, and we will all be dealing with those effects for a long time to come, whether we like it or not. It was a great historical event. Bangladesh set up a democratic, secular constitution in 1972. The country's future looked hopeful and rosy. The first President, Sheikh Mujib, was in office in 1972, and was assassinated in 1975 in the first military coup. There followed various periods of military government in Bangladesh, interspersed with elected government.
	Tragically, violence has been a feature of life in Bangladeshpolitical and terrorist violence, and gratuitous violence against minorities. Many people have suffered as a result. For example, Kibria, a former Finance Minister, was assassinated in 2005. That got enormous publicity at the time because the British high commissioner was injured during the assassination. I want to draw to the House's attention the problems with human rights in Bangladesh, and the abuses that are going on.

Ashok Kumar: I congratulate my hon. Friend on securing the debate, which is highly appropriate. Like him, I learned about Bangladesh through the eyes of a good friend, Talal Karim. I have never visited Bangladesh; I have only seen it on television. Does my hon. Friend agree that the tragedy of Bangladesh is that democracy has never been able to mature there? There have been regular military coups, and democracy never had the opportunity to flourish, so the country has never been able to find direction. Does he share those concerns?

Jeremy Corbyn: I do indeed share those concerns. Although the constitution allows for democratically elected government, there has always been the concern that the military might take over and remove the elected system. There is a constitutional safeguard that in many ways is very good. In the period surrounding an election, an interim Government have to take office. The interim Government are to be in office for only three months. Their role is to oversee the election period and the installation of the new Government. That is a laudable democratic aim that many other countries might think about.
	The present problem is that the interim Government have already been in office for the best part of a year and plan to be in office a lot longer. There are concerns about that because of what is happening now in Bangladesh. Human Rights Watch, reporting on the events of 2006, states:
	Security forces used mass arrests as means to suppress demonstrations. Workers in the export garment industry were subjected to violence and job dismissal in response to demands for wage increases and safe work conditions. Violence by religious extremists increased, and fundamentalist political groups gained influence in government.
	The report continues:
	Death in custody is common. In 2006, 51 prisoners, of whom 32 were reported to have died from various causes, including violence by fellow prisoners, and delays in medical treatment.
	It goes on to list many other issues surrounding corruption, the treatment of minorities and religious tensions in the country. These are matters of enormous concern.
	Sophie Richardson, Asia advocacy director at Human Rights Watch, referring to the ban on political life in Bangladesh that has been imposed by the interim Government, states:
	The idea that politics is banned in a democracy is bizarre. If the Bangladeshi authorities are serious about restoring democracy, they must fully end the ban on political activities.
	The Human Rights Watch report goes on to say:
	However, the partial lifting of the ban,
	which has happened,
	will only allow a political party to meet to discuss internal party reforms in the context of the Election Commission's proposals for electoral reform. Parties will still be required to inform the Dhaka Metropolitan Police in advance about all meetings. A maximum of 50 party members will be allowed to attend each meeting. The ban on all other political meetings will remain in force in the rest of the country. Under the Emergency Powers Rules of 2007, those who violate the restrictions face prison terms of two to five years as well as fines.
	Those are draconian measures, to put it mildly. I hope that our Government will be prepared to make appropriate and strong representations about them. Although we would all agree with the interim Government's laudable aim of fighting corruption, the best antidote to corruption is accountable government through a democratic processthrough the ballot box. It is therefore important that we make all the representations we can on that topic.
	The leaders of the major political parties, Sheikh Hasina and Khaleda Zia, often referred to disparagingly as the two sisters of Bangladesh, have very different political views and political aspirations. That is what democracy is about. Both are in detention, having returned to the country. We heard today that Sheikh Hasina has been given a date for her trial. Unfortunately, the trial will take place in front of a special court. I hope that the Government will send observers and make the appropriate representations to ensure that she has an open and fair trial. Those of us who met Sheikh Hasina in this country before she went back watched with amazement as she was preparing to go back. Indeed, I had a meeting with her on the day that she was preparing to go back. At that moment a call came through from British Airways saying that she could not get on the plane because it would not be allowed to land in Dhaka. Considerable negotiations followed. She wanted to go back to face the trial. That, surely, is to her credit.
	My last point is that according to Amnesty International, about 20,000 people are being held under special powers in Bangladesh, which is rather more than the number being held in Pakistan. I am not defending Pakistan's human rights recordfar from it. I merely make the point that a large number of people are being held in detention in Bangladesh.
	I hope that our Government will do a number of things. We are already doing the first, which is supporting the people in their hour of need after the cyclone, and I applaud what is being done. The Government should make all the representations possible to a fellow Commonwealth country about democracy and the restoration of democratic rights, and they should also send observers to the trial that I mentioned, to the electoral registration process and to the electionsif and when they finally take place.
	I am a representative of the Bengali community in my constituency. I am very proud of that community, and I know that it, too, feels the pain of the lack of democracy in Bangladesh and that it wants democratic rights restored. I am sure that we would support that community in that laudable aim.

Kim Howells: I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Islington, North (Jeremy Corbyn) for securing this debate, and I welcome his close interest in the important issues that he raised. He is an indefatigable champion of the Bangladeshi communities in this country, as indeed are my hon. Friends the Members for Edmonton (Mr. Love) and for Middlesbrough, South and East Cleveland (Dr. Kumar), who made interventions, and the Under-Secretary of State for Transport, my hon. Friend the Member for Poplar and Canning Town (Jim Fitzpatrick), who has been giving me a running commentary from the Front Bench.
	My right hon. Friend the Member for Leeds, West (John Battle) also intervened. I know from long experience that he has been very interested in this subject and is a firm supporter. He and my hon. Friend the Member for Islington, North have emphasised, and reminded us of, the vital part played in the life of our country by the Bangladeshi community. We ought to celebrate that, and it is an important point to make.
	Hon. Friends spoke of the tragedy of the cyclone and floods in Bangladesh earlier this month, and Her Majesty the Queen and my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister have expressed their shock and sadness. Our hearts go out to those who have lost loved ones and to those who have lost homes and livelihoods. I salute the resilience of the Bangladeshi people in the face of natural disasters, which sadly they know only too well. I have been fortunate enough to visit Bangladesh on a number of occasions, and I know that its terrain must be among the toughest in the world for people to eke out a livingit is astonishing how they manage to do it. The impact of the cyclone and the floods was devastating, but it would have been worse without the early warning system and the contingency measures developed over recent years and implemented effectively by the caretaker Government.
	My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for International Development today announced a contribution of 7 million for immediate to medium-term relief effortsI did not pick that up in the speech made by my hon. Friend the Member for Islington, North but I think that he mentioned itand 2.5 million has already been channelled through the United Nations Development Programme to provide safe water, food, medical treatment and housing repairs. The remaining part of our contribution will be used to fund gaps in existing provision, particularly that for clean drinking water and sanitation. I was grateful to my hon. Friend for highlighting some of the difficulties in the distribution of that aid. I have seen for myself after other disasters that people who live nearest the roads can be the more fortunate ones in receiving such aid, but I am sure that great efforts are being made to get this aid out to the more remote areas, too. We are considering further assistance as the needs become clearer.
	I pay tribute to the impressive contributions of the Bangladeshi community in the UK. It quickly began raising large sums for the Disaster Emergency Committee, whose appeal is also raising additional resources for those affected. I am sure that my hon. Friend the Member for Islington, North knows this, but it is worth repeating to the House that the development programme in Bangladesh managed by the Department for International Development is a vital part of our bilateral commitment, and is valued very highly by the people of Bangladesh and by the caretaker Government. Indeed, the United Kingdom is the largest bilateral donor to Bangladesh, with a programme of nearly 117 million this year. Bangladesh represents the United Kingdom's second largest country development programme worldwide. That is a sign of the warm relationships between our two peoples and the understanding in this country of the need to support Bangladesh and its democracy and to ensure that such natural disasters do not make matters worse than they already are.

John Battle: DIFD has produced a country strategy for Bangladesh that lasts from 2006 to 2010. That is very progressive and it addresses the longer term, but we need to get the World Bank, the European Union and other donors behind it; otherwise we will go through disaster after disaster and pick up the pieces. Will my hon. Friend press his colleagues to encourage other donors to get behind that longer-term strategy?

Kim Howells: My right hon. Friend makes a good point. That is one of the ways of doing it, as my hon. Friend the Member for Islington, North might have said had he not lacked time. Bangladesh could become one of the world leaders in tackling climate change. It has 30 millionperhaps even 70 millionpeople threatened by rising sea levels. We should approach that bilaterally as well as trying to involve the big international funding organisations in projects to help the Bangladeshi people themselves to take these schemes forward.
	My hon. Friend spoke about the political situation in Bangladesh. We should not forget the scale of the crisis when the President of Bangladesh asked the caretaker Governmentmy hon. Friend called it the interim Governmentto take on their heavy burden in the first place. A confrontational, winner-takes-all political culture, deep-rooted corruption, cronyism and falling standards of governance added up to a raw deal for the people. I saw that for myself, time and again, when I visited Bangladesh. The country was nowhere near reaching its full potential. This time last year, we saw violence on the streets between the parties ahead of elections that showed no signs of meeting the free and fair test. Members of the public and of civil society told us repeatedly that the status quo could not continue. There had to be fundamental change to put Bangladesh on the right track, and the country needed, and continues to need, a political overhaul.
	That is not to say that good things have not happened in Bangladesh; my hon. Friend mentioned some of them. The country has made impressive progress on poverty reduction, with poverty being reduced from 58 per cent. in 1990 to 40 per cent. in 2005, as well as progress on gender equality. Bangladesh's pioneering of systems of micro-credit has gained global admiration. Those systems have been replicated around the world, wherever I go. Bangladesh should be very proud of that. Bangladesh's armed forces have forged a good reputation in United Nations peacekeeping missions around the world. The economy has achieved steady growth. The frustration was that Bangladesh should have been doing even bettermuch betterand that the focus of the political class on self-interest was depriving many Bangladeshis of the chance of a better life and a chance to share in the country's prosperity.
	By January 2007, Bangladesh had been pushed to the brink of state failure. I say that after a great deal of consideration. We were as worried about Bangladesh a year ago as we were about anywhere in the world. Because it is such a populous country with so many people living on the edge, it was very important that something was done to start pulling its politics around. There was an urgent need for an Administration who would put the interest of the Bangladeshi people first and put Bangladesh on the right track. It is unfortunate that circumstances arose in which a state of emergency was declared. We do not want that, and I fully understand my hon. Friend's concern. We welcomed the appointment of the caretaker Government as offering an opportunity to establish conditions for credible elections that could sustain democracy in the longer term.
	We believe that the caretaker Government have taken at least some constructive steps towards those goals. I see plenty of evidence of concrete action towards creating a strong Bangladeshi democracy that can endure. My hon. Friend the Member for Islington, North and I could talk for a very long time about the time lines that he mentioned and about the need to get to elections as quickly as possible while producing a sustainable result. It would be a disaster to hold elections that were not regarded as free and fair because we would probably see another cycle of corruption and military action.
	There has been good progress on the production of a revised and accurate new photo-voter list. The judiciary has been separated from the Executive, which was an historic step. The election commission has been strengthened and made independent and the anti-corruption commission rejuvenated and given unprecedented bite. There are measures to reform public service and make merit the basis for advancement, and there are signs of better relations with India. That is a notable list of achievements 10 months on, but important challenges lie ahead, including food prices, which are the main concern for many Bangladeshis. Effective management of the economy will be key over the next year, and beyond.
	Our Government strongly support the road map to elections by December 2008 at the latest. As my hon. Friend the Member for Islington, North has pointed out, that is a long way away. We are offering practical support for election preparations. It is our strong impression that the majority of Bangladeshis accept that time is needed to put in place preparations for free, fair and credible elections for a democracy that can endure. We welcome the chief election commissioner's remarks that the date for elections could be brought forward if the voter list and electoral reforms can be completed earlier then planned. If the date of elections can be advanced, it should be. We welcome the good progress that has been made on preparing the new voter list.

Jeremy Corbyn: I realise that my hon. Friend has very little time left, but will he put what pressure he can on Bangladesh to lift its ban on political activities and to release its political prisonersand all others held under emergency legislationso that they can go through the normal judicial process?

Kim Howells: We are certainly in favour of releasing political prisoners anywhere in the world. I welcome the attention that my hon. Friend has drawn to the important issues of due process of law and human rights. He raised a particular concern about the treatment of Sheikh Hasina and Begum Zia, both of whom I have met on several occasions. I remind him that both have been charged with corruption and extortion, and remain in detention in so-called sub-jails. We cannot ignore that. Their cases are within the judicial system of Bangladesh, and we have consistently urged the caretaker Government to ensure that due process and individual rights are upheld, and that trials are independent and fair, consistent with Bangladesh's international human rights obligations.
	In the few moments left to me, this crackdown on corruption
	 The motion having been made after Seven o'clock, and the debate having continued for half an hour, Mr. Deputy Speaker adjourned the House without Question put, pursuant to the Standing Order.
	 Adjourned at two minutes to Eight o'clock.

Deferred Division

Global navigation satellite system and the european institute of technology

That this House takes note of European Union Documents No. 13112/07 and Addendum 1, Commission Communication: Progressing Galileo: re-profiling the European GNSS Programmes; No. 13113/07, amended draft Regulation on the further implementation of the European satellite radionavigation programmes (EGNOS and Galileo) and No. 13237/1/07, Commission Communication concerning the revision of the multi-annual financial framework (2007-2013), on re-profiling the Galileo programme and on the proposal for the revision of the Financial Perspectives to finance the Galileo programme and the European Institute of Technology; and endorses the Government's approach to discussions on these documents.
	 The House divided: Ayes 267, Noes 201.

Question accordingly agreed to.